Characters / Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor - Protagonists

The protagonists of Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor and Middle-earth: Shadow of War.

Beware of spoilers!

Talion

Talion

Race: Men (Gondor) (formerly)

Voiced by: Troy Baker

"These aren't Orcs, they're Uruks. They're worse, and there's far too many."

One of the Rangers of Gondor who was stationed at the Black Gate, Talion is the sole survivor of Sauron's return, if only because instead of being sacrificed for the Black Hand to retrieve a powerful wraith from the dead, it joined with him instead. Already a masterful swordsman, a skilled acrobat, and a formidable fighter, the wraith's power has turned him into a One-Man Army, bent on revenge against the Black Hand for killing his family, and for the Resurrective Immortality that keeps him from reuniting with them.

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• Achilles' Heel: The only thing stopping Talion from passing on is The Wraith, which means anything, typically a kind of powerful magic, that can separate the two will quickly become his final death. After storming the Black Gate, Talion faces the Black Hand who uses a ritual to sever their connection and resurrect Sauron in physical form, causing Talion's lethal wounds to immediately re-open as he begins to bleed to death. During Shadow of War, it's shown that a Ring of Power (which has the life force of its creator inside of it) can also sustain him, such as Celebrimbor's New Ring or one of the Rings worn by the Nazgûl.
• And Then John Was a Zombie: In Shadow of War, forced to take the discarded Ring previously worn by Isildur after Celebrimbor's betrayal and Eltariel taking the New Ring, Talion becomes a Nazgûl himself and bound to Sauron's service.
• Animate Dead: The logical endpoint for Talion's abilities, considering his banishment from death and being bound to a Wraith that leaves him in a state of perpetual undeath. Ironically, he only gains this ability after Celebrimbor betrays him and gives his New Ring to Eltaeriel in Shadow of War. Some of the Wraith's powers are replaced with powers typical of a Nazgûl that let him raise deceased Uruk-hai and Olog-hai to fight for him once more.
• Anti-Hero: Talion's primary motivation is avenging his and his family's murders and he's willing to do just about whatever it takes to accomplish that. While he still limits himself to orcs, his domination and slaughter of them takes a toll; one monologue in the Lord of the Hunt DLC is him questioning who is the real beast between Mordor's fauna, the orcs, and himself who hunts all of them.
• Armored But Frail: Even as an undead being bonded with a Wraith, he remains as strong as a normal human throughout the game, only able to cause and receive more damage due to his armor and weapons.
• Badass Cape: Has one, and it can never be removed in gameplay. Shadow of War reveals it to be a Tragic Keepsake of his dead wife. Like the rest of his ensemble, becoming a Ringwraith comes with one as well, like the other Nazgûl.
• Bad Guys Do the Dirty Work: Interestingly inverted with Ratbag, an orc who gets Talion (a Man) to kill his enemies for him. Also arguably averted, since Ratbag is a Harmless Villain and Talion was almost certainly going to kill those enemies anyway.
• Bad Powers, Good People: Due to being Celebrimbor's host, he has his powers by proxy but he is still qualifies as The Hero. This trope becomes even stronger at the end of Shadow of War when Talion intentionally transforms himself into a Nazgûl after rejecting Celebrimbor's goal to replace Sauron, being left for dead and forced to take on a Rinf of Power, and then uses his powers to defy the Dark Lord, keeping his armies divided for as long as he can to defend Middle-earth from being invaded by him.
• Barred from the Afterlife: His "undeath", as Carnán puts it, is due to Celebrimbor using his body as a host. He's further barred from it when he takes a Ring of Power and becomes a Ringwraith himself. The destruction of the One Ring finally allows him to pass on to Valinor.
• Barrier Maiden: Among other things, in order for Middle-earth to recover enough to ultimately defeat Sauron, there needed to be a counterbalance to the Dark Lord to delay his campaign of conquest until the time is right. Through advice provided by both Eltariel and Shelob herself, Talion makes himself that very counterbalance, using his power of domination to trap Sauron's army in a war against itself and keep the Dark Lord's power contained within Mordor.
• Benevolent Boss: He can be played this way to his Uruk army, willing to give regular promotions and training, risking life and limb to save his warriors, and being A Father to His Men overall.
• Big Good: Downplayed. Talion isn't the most morally correct hero in Middle-earth, but he champions the army of dominated Orcs and Ologs opposing Sauron and even after being turned into a Nazgûl by wearing a Ring of Power after Celebrimbor's Face–Heel Turn, he still maintains the conflict against the Dark Lord for as long as possible to buy time for the Free People outside Mordor to gather their strength to fight Sauron.
• Black Eyes of Crazy: He gains these in Shadow of War when he claims Isildur's Ring — or when he just wears the Servant set, his sclera turn black to accompany his yellow irises. It becomes more fitting once he finally succumbs to the Ring's influence and joins the Nazgûl completely.
• Bow and Sword in Accord: Plus his Tragic Keepsake "dagger." The bow is technically the Wraith's, but given their bond together, that amounts to semantics. After becoming a Ringwraith, he gets to have one, but canonically changes it to a small hammer fashioned after fellow Nazgûl Helm Hammerhand.
• Bullet Time: A power the Wraith grants him that acts as a gameplay feature, slowing down time in order to allow for easier shots with the bow/hammer.
• Canon Character All Along: He ultimately becomes one of the Ringwraiths at the end of Shadow of War. Specifically, the Winged Wraith that hunts the Ringbearer. It serves to give a little more weight to Gollum's fear about the "wraith on wings", because he had met him when he was still "alive".
• Changed My Mind, Kid: All through Shadow of Mordor, Talion's main objective is to break the curse that prevents him from being Together in Death with his family. However, by the time he finally gets his chance, he's gotten a glimpse of Sauron's power and menace, which causes him to forgo passing into the afterlife in favor of stopping him.
• Charm Person: By proxy, as the Wraith channels his branding powers through Talion's scarred hand.
• The Chessmaster: His interactions with a Nemesis can easily become this, and this is in fact encouraged by the gameplay mechanics.
• Combat Pragmatist: Talion does not fight fair, and given that he's waging a one-man guerilla war against the forces of Sauron, it's entirely justified. He exploits the weaknesses of Captains, poisons orc grog barrels to spread sickness, and turns as many orcs as possible to his cause. Even in direct combat, he'll gladly use stealth and surprise to his advantage, take hostages, and kick enemies in the groin.
• Conscience Makes You Go Back:
  • At the end of Shadow of Mordor, Talion has what he wanted, a way to die and rejoin his family. He refuses on the basis that he can't rest knowing Sauron would be free to attack the rest of Middle-earth.
  • In Shadow of War, with Celebrimbor's betrayal, Talion has another chance to rejoin his family in death, but after Shelob explains the need to counter the victor of Sauron and Celebrimbor's duel, Talion again chooses to return to the land of the living to hold back the darkness — this time in a bleak Forever War which he is doomed to lose.
• Creepy Good: As a Ringwraith in Shadow of War Act IV, since he uses many dark powers granted by Isildur's Ring to fight against Sauron and his minions.
• Crusading Widower: Talion's goal is as much to avenge his wife and son's murders as his own. As he's gradually seduced to the Dark Lord's side by wearing a Ring of Power, he forgets their names and faces while holding onto the goal of protecting Gondor and the Free People from the Dark Lord as long as possible.
• Cursed with Awesome: His bond with the Wraith means he is "banished from death," meaning he cannot pass on and reunite with his family. On the other hand, he also has access to the Wraith's vast array of powers.
• Dark Is Not Evil: Despite having sinister, dark powers, and being generally very dour and cynical as the Gravewalker, Talion is still a noble, good man at heart.
  • In Shadow of War, he can sport the Vengeance and Servant sets, highly sinister-looking sets of black armor worn alongside a tattered black hood and cloak, both of which make him look like the Black Hand of Sauron. During Act IV "Shadow Wars" of the story mode, Talion dons the Servant set after he is forced to take Isildur's Ring and turns into a Nazgûl himself — and even if he swaps it for different armor his spectral form is always shown wearing it. Even then, he devotes several years fending off Sauron's invasion of Mordor until he eventually succumbs to Sauron's control.
• The Dark Side Will Make You Forget: If you go and read the item descriptions of some of Talion's items from the past (namely his cloak, Ioreth's Embrace, and Acharn) after completing several of the Nazgûl missions, they will change to reflect that Talion is losing his memory of Dirhael and Ioreth. Ioreth's Embrace is changed to Dark Embrace, and prior to the Servant set being completed it states that while he can still remember it is a memento from their anniversary, the days are rapidly becoming more distant. Acharn, meanwhile, when fully upgraded flatly states that its original owner is long forgotten.
  Acharn: The dagger Acharn. Forever cursed, its original owner long forgotten.
  Ioreth's/Dark Embrace: A tattered cloak so stained in blood its origins can no longer be discerned.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Dialogue in certain loading screens of Shadow of Mordor reveal that he murdered a nobleman who was trying to assault Ioreth. As this was quite a crime, the law was that he be put to death immediately — the only reason he wasn't is because Ioreth's father learned she was pregnant with Talion's child (and that she'd claim she murdered the noblemen to defend him), thus giving Talion a choice between execution or service at the Black Gate in his place. He chose the latter.
• Deadpan Snarker: Mostly with Ratbag, but Talion has more than a few snarky lines.
  Overlord: I hope they told you outside, I play rough!
  Talion: Well they weren't telling me much. They were too busy dying or fleeing.
• Death Seeker: All he wants to do is die and join his wife and son. That goal changes in the finale of Mordor, where he decides to wage war against Sauron.
  Talion: Could you really rest for all of eternity, knowing that you had the chance to stop him but did nothing?
• Determinator: Even in the Darkest Hour after Celebrimbor's betrayal, when he decides to put on one of the Nine Rings, he defiantly pronounces, "As long as I have breath in my body, my fate is my own!"
• Died Happily Ever After: After decades of torment and fighting against the dark forces of Mordor he finally dies when Mt Doom explodes and his fell beast is taken out by a lava bomb, granting him peace at last and finally the chance he was literally dying to have: to be with his family again for all eternity.
• Dragon Rider: Shadow of War introduces fire-drakes, and naturally, Talion can learn to dominate and ride them. Also just like the other Nazgûl, he rides fell beasts as well and is actually seen mounted on one in the Golden Ending when he is killed by Mount Doom's eruption.
• Dramatic Irony: Throughout Act I, one of Celebrimbor's primary objectives is acquiring the Palantír of Minas Ithil. While the city falls and the Palantír falls into the Witch-king's hands, Talion eventually manages to retake both city and Seeing-stone — after being abandoned by Celebrimbor, who has moved on to bigger things. For added irony, the first thing Talion uses the recaptured Palantír to see is Celebrimbor and Eltariel's duel against Sauron at the summit of the Barad-dûr.
• The Dreaded: Some Uruk Captains can develop a trait called Fear of the Gravewalker (Overwhelming Awe in Shadow of War), which causes them to flee in a blind panic as soon as they see Talion.
• Dying as Yourself: A Freeze-Frame Bonus in the Golden Ending shows Talion with his human features again as opposed to the jagged metal face mask of the Nazgûl, suggesting that he was free of Sauron's darkness with the One Ring's destruction in the last moments of his life.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: Unlike Celebrimbor, Talion holds onto his humanity and fights against the forces of darkness as long as he can. While he still ends up succumbing to the Ring's influence and becomes a Nazgûl, his holding back the forces of Mordor earns enough time for an unlikely hero to emerge and destroy the One Ring, finally allowing Talion to find freedom in death.
• Emergency Transformation: When the Wraith leaves his body, he is forced to take Isildur's ring and become a Nazgûl himself so he can devote his following years resisting whoever emerges the victor in Sauron and Celebrimbor's duel.
• Empowered Badass Normal: He held his own very well at the Black Gate, and only stood down when his family was threatened. He's even more badass now that he's bonded with the Wraith and all his powers.
• Everyone Has Standards: Over the course of Shadow of War, he grows more and more uneasy with Celebrimbor's brutal methods and growing lust for power, but the final straw truly comes when Celebrimbor tries to dominate Isildur; Talion, having seen Isildur's memories of how he became one of the Nazgûl, decides this is a line he won't cross and instead opts to put Isildur out of his misery, much to Celebrimbor's fury.
  Celebrimbor (furious): He was not yours to release!
  Talion (disgusted): And he was not YOURS to enslave!
  • Moments later, Talion has another such moment when he discovers Celebrimbor's plan is to dominate Sauron and take his place as ruler of Mordor.
    Talion: I will not trade one Dark Lord for another! This is not the end I have fought for!
• Evil Costume Switch: Twice in Shadow of War: first, when he puts on Isildur's ring and becomes a rogue Nazgûl (not quite evil, but Darker and Edgier than before), he dresses in a black cloak and hood not too different from the Black Hand in Shadow of Mordor. Second, after completing the Shadow Wars and unlocking the Golden Ending, Talion dresses just like the other Nazgûl under Sauron's control.
• Evil Weapon: Urfael and Acharn become this when Talion turns into a Ringwraith. Anything they kill has the chance to get back up as a Revenant under Talion's command.
• Evolving Weapon:
  • In Shadow of Mordor, completing specific missions lets the Wraith reforge his weapons twice over, completely transforming Urfael and Acharn.
  • In Shadow of War, Talion's initial equipment, including Urfael and Acharn, will incrementally upgrade into the Servant Set, as Talion fights and is exposed to the Nazgûl. The set is completed when Talion takes Isildur's Ring and becomes a Ringwraith himself.
• Expy:
  • According to the developers, Talion is based on Boromir as a Gondorian warrior willing to wield dangerous powers to fight against the Dark Lord. His powers also make him vaguely similar to the Ringwraiths, a similarity which is emphasized in the second game when he actually confronts them, especially since they all wield Rings of Power. He actually winds up turning into a Ringwraith himself, but he still remains heroic for many decades until his eventual fall.
  • In War, his arc resembles that of a certain Skywalker... namely Anakin. Both are an One-Man Army with a link to an unseen power, can sense people they can't physically see, and despite some morally questionable decisions deep down they're a good guy. Their backstories involve losing a loved one to the settings's savages, whom they avenge by massacring every member of said savages they come across. Eventually their attempts to use evil powers for good cause them to be left to die by someone they saw as a friend, after which they go through an Emergency Transformation that turns them into a slave for the Big Bad. Years later, they die as themselves, having earned their rest. By the endgame, this even applies to his looks; Talion's black hood and yellow eyes resemble Anakin's from Episode III, while the unlockable Nazgûl gear is a black, faceless armor not unlike Vader's iconic attire.
• Eye Colour Change: He has brown eyes in the prologue, but they turn light blue following his possession by the Wraith. When he pledges to create a new Ring of Power, his eyes are a dull gold color, but they're back to being blue in Shadow of War. At the end of Shadow of War his irises turn yellow due to him falling under the influence of Isildur's Ring of Power. After he dies and ends up in Valinor, his eyes are a striking blue again.
• Face–Heel Turn: He finally succumbs to the corruption of Isildur's Ring at the very end of Shadow of War, and the circumstances of his fall are shown in detail in the Blade of Galadriel Downloadable Content.
• The Faceless: He adopts the mask all Nazgûl wear when he finally succumbs to one of the Nine Rings. The July 2018 update added five equippable Nazgûl masks^note they're listed as Cloaks in the gear inventory with unique traits that are awarded for completing the Shadow Wars.
• Fate Worse than Death: Of the Who Wants to Live Forever? variety. In fact, his big What the Hell, Hero? to Celebrimbor is that he lied about letting him die. It gets worse in the true ending of Shadow of War, where he becomes one of the Nazgûl in place of Isildur. He only gets out of it by the end of The Lord of the Rings when the One Ring gets destroyed.
• Fallen Hero: Becomes one of the Nazgûl during the true ending of Shadow of War.
• A Father to His Men: Talion can be a massive Benevolent Boss to the Uruks under his command, and a generally more personable leader than Sauron ever was, to the point where he can actually befriend his army's leaders.
• The Fettered: There are lines that he won't cross, unlike Celebrimbor. Downplayed in that he never has any qualms about slaughtering and mind raping Orcs.
• Fighting Spirit: Celebrimbor is his "Fighting Spirit" throughout the two games, being the force that prevents Talion from dying permanently, and he eventually gets his own wraith clone when Celebrimbor abandons him..
• Final Boss: For the Blade of Galadriel Downloadable Content. Notably, he was an ally throughout the DLC story, all the way up to the introductory cutscene of the Final Battle.
• Follow in My Footsteps: He was raising his son, Dirhael, to become a Ranger.
• Forced to Watch: Forced to see his wife and son die in a dark magic ritual before being killed himself.
• Frontline General: In Shadow of War, Talion personally leads his Uruk armies in assaulting and taking enemy strongholds. This notably sets him apart from Sauron, who stays far away from the action, and it's a trait that commands respect from his Uruk followers.
  Uruk: You know what I like the most about the Bright Lord? He actually fights alongside us.
• Gameplay and Story Integration: Every move he shows off during his boss fights in the Blade of Galadriel DLC can be performed during normal gameplay in the main game. His jumping teleport is a combination of Eagle's Eyrie and Bird of Prey^note Eagle's Eyrie is pretty much designed to be used in tandem with Bird of Prey with the Talon Strike upgrade enabled, the fan of daggers he sometimes throws is the Rain of Blades upgrade to Brace of Daggers, and the explosions he causes are from the hammers he tosses around. He can even perform executions!
• Good Counterpart: To the Nazgûl, since Talion is also an undead Man brought back to life with special powers, but he fights to protect Middle-earth from the Shadow and its minions. In Shadow of War, Talion wields a Ring of Power just like the Nazgûl and actually encounters and fights them on a regular basis. At the end of the game, Talion becomes a Ringwraith himself, albeit a renegade one waging war against the Dark Lord's forces to protect Middle-earth until his eventual fall.
• Good Is Not Soft: Unlike Celebrimbor, Talion is unambiguously good, and he will always choose helping his fellow Men over pursuing domination of Mordor. However, he has no mercy for orcs and will not hesitate to slaughter or Mind Rape them; as the story progresses, the brutality of his war against Sauron is shown to be enough to corrupt him and get the attention of the Witch-king. In one particularly dark example, he initially plans to kill Brûz after the latter betrays him, but after enduring one too many of Brûz's Bullying a Dragon antics, he opts to let him live after breaking his mind and driving him insane.
• Good Scars, Evil Scars: A mixture of both: his hand is scarred from being smashed by the Hammer of Sauron, and serves as the focus point for the Wraith's Bad Powers, Good People abilities.
• The Greatest Story Never Told: Except for Shelob herself, no one in Middle-earth will know that it was actually one of Sauron's own Nazgûl that waged war on him for many years, preventing him from uniting his forces and delaying his invasion of Middle-earth.
• The Hero: In the game series, since he is the primary Playable Character and is more noble and straightforward than Celebrimbor.
• Heroic Sacrifice: When Celebrimbor abandons him, Talion begins to die from his slashed throat again. Seeing Isildur's Ring of Power lying on the ground nearby, he grabs it and puts it on, knowing full well that he's dooming himself to eternity as a Ringwraith and giving up his final chance to be Together in Death with his family. In doing so, however, he buys himself the strength to resist the Enemy from within Mordor, sparing the rest of Middle-earth from his wrath.
• Heroic Willpower: After putting on Isildur's Ring of Power to save his own life, Talion's will to resist the Ring and wage war against Sauron lasts for decades.
• Heel Realization: While looking at Isildur's memory, Talion realizes that enslaving Sauron's minions makes him and Celebrimbor no different from Sauron.
• Heroes Prefer Swords: While he does have other weapons at his disposal, Talion's primary weapon is Urfael. In Shadow of War, he has the option to wield a variety of different blades.
• He Who Fights Monsters: Talion is the first line of defense between Middle-earth and the forces of darkness, but being one man he had to use the power of the Wraith and ring of power to have a fighting chance which consumes him slowly. Even the orcs comment that Talion is similar to them except they can rest in peace when they die.
• Hidden Depths: Shadow of War's Gondorian artifact sidequests have Talion reveal a few sides to his character through commentary on the artifacts he finds. For instance, he always wanted to learn to play the lute, and in his younger days had an interest in carpentry.
  Celebrimbor: Talion the craftsman. That I'd have liked to see.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Every terrible thing that happens to him in Shadow of War can be traced back to his decision to create a new Ring of Power.
• Human Sacrifice: He, along with the rest of his family, were sacrificed in a ritual to summon the Wraith and bind him to the Black Hand. He alone revived because the Wraith bonded with him instead.
• Immigrant Patriotism: Talion talks at great length about how Gondor is his people, how Numenoreans were awesome, and how affected he is by seeing the Gondor flag artifact. This is despite the fact Talion is notably a Northman and unrelated to the Numenoreans.
• Informed Flaw: In Shadow of War, Orcs sometimes insult Talion by claiming that he's horrifyingly ugly and looks like he's rotting. Despite being an undead being, he remains relatively handsome throughout the game, and even if hit by a Cursed weapon, he just turns pale. As a bonus, he doesn't seem to age a day during the decades he fought Sauron as a rogue Nazgûl, although this is simply an effect that Rings of Power have on Men.
• Ink-Suit Actor: Not so much in Shadow of Mordor, but Shadow of War uses new character models, and Talion's looks a lot like his voice actor Troy Baker. In fact, the model looks uncannily similar to a hairier version of Delsin Rowe.
• In the Hood: Can wear some hooded capes in Shadow of War. His default Ringwraith appearance and his own wraith form also have them, like all the Nazgûl.
• Life Drain:
  • Zig-zagged in Shadow of Mordor:
    • Initially subverted, as draining enemies weakens enemies (and terrifies grunts) but replenishes Talion's Elf-shot rather than his health.
    • Played straight with certain runes (most notably Favor of the Lady) that restore health with each drain.
    • Inverted after branding is unlocked; while Brand is an upgrade to Drain, branded enemies regain all health instead of losing it.
  • Mostly played straight and inverted in Shadow of War:
    • Played straight with the Drain skill^note which is notably the only skill in the entire skill tree to be active from the get-go, although Talion also innately possesses several skills that needed to be unlocked in Shadow of Mordor such as Shoulder Charge, detonating grog barrels, and aerial stealth attacks, which has been altered to drain the Life Energy of Uruks (enemy and follower alike) and rats.
    • Additionally, placing a green Life Gem in a weapon type's gem slot causes that weapon to restore Talion's health with each use. In particular, each stab of a Brutalize attack increases Talion's health, and a Perfect Life Gem in the dagger's gem slot can restore a near-dead Talion to full health before he even finishes the attack.
    • Dominating enemies is inverted as it was in Mordor, as dominating and recruiting an enemy replenishes both Talion's and the new follower's health.
    • The Lifeblood skill upgrade is another inversion, as it enables Talion to replenish the health of all nearby followers (aside from captains who are bleeding out) at the cost of his own.
• Living on Borrowed Time: The only thing keeping him alive is his bond to Celebrimbor, as his fatal throat wound reopens whenever they are separated. Shadow of War reveals that Rings of Power can also keep Talion alive.
• Maligned Mixed Marriage: In Shadow of Mordor, after picking up an artifact, Talion muses that his father-in-law Hallas never let him forgetinvoked that, unlike Hallas and his daughter Ioreth, Talion didn't have a drop of Númenórean blood in his veins.
• Meaningful Name: His name comes from the law of talion in the Bible, which is the origin of the saying "an eye for an eye".
  • Apparently subverted, if you believe the devs' comment during a Shadow of War pre-release interview that the characters' names were derived from Northern European languages (just like Tolkien).
• Motive Decay: In contrast with Celebrimbor, whose quest for revenge twisted into planned tyranny, Talion goes the opposite route; first he just wishes to die, then to destroy Sauron before dying, and once given the chance to finally rejoin his family, he realizes he cannot let Sauron or Celebrimbor win and picks up the only way he could slow either of them down, knowing that doing so will turn him into Sauron's servant and prevent him from joining his family in death possibly forever. In effect, the loss of his way in his motivation serves to show his Character Development, rather than being The Dark Side Will Make You Forget.
• Multi-Melee Master: He's skilled in both longsword and dagger combat, and while he only wields one at a time, he can alternate between them on the fly. In the sequel he gets to use a glaive.
• Murder Is the Best Solution: His attitude towards Orcs in a nutshell: those who can't be dominated die, and those that betray him die too. Talion states that he is only using Orcs to get to Sauron, and he couldn't care less about Celebrimbor's politics.
• Necromancer: He gains the power after he takes Isildur's Ring. At first, it only allows resurrecting grunts, but upgrades allow him to resurrect Olog-hai, beasts, or even captains.
• Never My Fault: After seeing that Celebrimbor helped Annatar trick the kings of men into becoming the Nazgûl, he calls out the elf for crafting the New Ring. As Celebrimbor points out, it was Talion who picked up his hammer and creating a new ring was his idea in the first place.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: At the end of Shadow of Mordor, Celebrimbor dismisses challenging Sauron as futile and was ready to pass on to the afterlife, but Talion persuades him to stick around and forge a new Ring of Power to challenge Sauron directly. Talion comes to regret this when Celebrimbor becomes a ruthless tyrant and betrays him.
• Noiseless Walker: Thanks to one of his potential abilities, he can walk and even run straight past uruks without them noticing unless they're directly looking at him. And even then.
• Normally, I Would Be Dead Now: When the Black Hand severs Talion's connection to Celebrimbor, Talion's lethal wounds reopen. Instead of collapsing and bleeding out, like he did the first time, Talion holds on long enough to kill the Black Hand and get Celebrimbor back. This happens again in Shadow of War when Shelob takes the New Ring from him, and when Celebrimbor takes the New Ring and abandons him to possess Eltariel.
• Oh, Crap!: When Talion faces a Balrog in Shadow of War, it's the first time in either game he's clearly panicking, and tells Celebrimbor that the creature is "beyond us."
• One-Man Army: The series' premise is that Talion, with Celebrimbor along for the ride, is effectively waging a one-man war against Sauron and all the forces of Mordor. And while he doesn't win, he doesn't lose easily either.
• One-Steve Limit: Talion's title of Gravewalker isn't unique in Mordor. There's a Mystic Orc with the same title, and he's not happy to have competition, outright calling Talion a pretender.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: After becoming a Ringwraith, some Uruks still call him the Bright Lord, since most orcs don't know what he looks like, and he still fits the same description of a One-Man Army as before Celebrimbor abandoned him.
• Outliving One's Offspring: Technically he was killed shortly after his son Dirhael, but Celebrimbor revived him by possessing him. Dirhael, meanwhile, passed on to Valinor with Ioreth. By the end of the second game, Talion finally reunites with him.
• Only Sane Man: Being an Audience Surrogate many times, he doesn't have much time for lunacy. For instance, when dealing with Ratbag, he looks like he's going to roll his eyes at any moment. Instead, he grits his teeth and makes not-so-veiled threats.
• Perma-Stubble: Talion's face never grows anything more than five o'clock shadow, despite the fact that we never see him shaving. Justified due to his status as an undead Man.
• Phlebotinum Rebel: The Hand of Sauron kills him to power a ritual — the same ritual that goes slightly askew and grants Talion his Resurrective Immortality.
• Power Echoes: During the Shadow Wars, when Talion claims a fort and is in his Wraith form, his voice is distorted and echoic.
• Pragmatic Hero: The developers explicitly compare him to Boromir. He's reluctant to use various methods advocated by the Wraith, but does so nonetheless in order to continue on his mission.
• The Quiet One: Originally, he had no new^note He keeps most of those that he already had, such as when he meets with someone he's sent a death threat to lines whatsoever during Act IV and beyond, with the exception of speeches when his army captured a fortress, and just grunted when dominating orcs. He was later given more lines with a patch.
• Red Baron: He's known amongst the Orcs as the "Gravewalker", especially at his most fearsome. If his legacy starts to wane, however (if he dies a lot in succession, or stops killing off captains for a time), he's more likely to be referred to as the more derisive "Tark". He's later known as the Bright Lord, which makes sense as most Orcs can't see Celebrimbor, who actually holds the title.
  • In Shadow of War, a captain with the title of the Agonizer can suggest an alternative interpretation of Talion's most famous title, which can be surprisingly insightful depending on how you've been playing the game.
    The Agonizer: They call you GRAVEWALKER! — which sounds pretty tough, but... it's just a fancy way of saying "dies a lot."
• Resurrective Immortality: Thanks to his bond with the Wraith, he's "banished from death" and revives at a Forge Tower some time later when he's slain. Isildur's ring keeps him alive after he turns into a Ringwraith.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Subverted. Talion has the perfect bedrock for one of these, being magically kept alive after the murder of his wife and son, hunting the people who did that to him. However, his main motivation is to break the curse and die, not to take revenge. In fact, Celebrimbor has to keep reminding him about what he's lost and how he wants revenge in order to keep them moving.
• Sickly Green Glow: Has this look in his Ringwraith state after taking Isildur's Ring, replacing Celebrimbor's ghostly bluish overlay.
• Silent Antagonist: Is this to the Orcs whom he fights. He simply doesn't have any words for them, preferring instead to let his weapons do the talking and have the Wraith scream commands at defeated adversaries that he's draining or branding. Talion actually replying to his enemies is something of a Godzilla Threshold, as he only deigns to respond to the Black Captains, the Nazgûl, and some fortress overlords.
• Spanner in the Works: In Shadow of War, he becomes this to Celebrimbor and Sauron; by mercy killing Isildur and refusing to follow Celebrimbor's Evil Plan, he completely undoes one Bad Future from happening where Celebrimbor would have prevailed over the Dark Lord and proceeded to enslave Middle-earth, while his continuous defiance against Sauron prevented him from uniting his forces much sooner and invading Middle-earth decades before the events of Fellowship of the Ring.
• Supernatural Gold Eyes: During the Fall of Minas Ithil, the Witch-king of Angmar subjects Talion to a Facepalm of Doom, causing Talion's irises to turn red-and-yellow. Much later, Talion's eyes turn yellow after he claims Isildur's ring.
• That Man Is Dead: Talion practically quotes this trope upon succumbing to the Ring's corruption.
  Talion: This Ring is mine...and Talion is no more.
• Took a Level in Badass: Not that he wasn't badass at the start of the series, but the power gap from where he began increases as the series progresses: he is revived as a Empowered Badass Normal with spectral powers and the ability to return to life every time he is killed. In the second game, after forging a Ring of Power under Celebrimbor's instruction, he uses it to become Sauron's rival by building his own army of minions instead of just harassing his foes. By the end of Shadow of War, he has become so powerful as a Ringwraith that he is quite literally the only thing standing between Sauron and Middle-earth. Not to mention that he singlehandedly defeats the Witch-king and reclaims Minas Morgul, which an army of Gondorians (ironically supported by Talion himself) failed to do earlier in the game.
• Undeathly Pallor: Averted while the Wraith is bound to Talion, as he retains his normal skin tone. After becoming a Ringwraith, his skin becomes ashen grey with visible black veins.
• Voice of the Legion: Whenever Celebrimbor takes over him, and after he becomes a Ringwraith.
• We Used to Be Friends: He still bears a grudge against Eltariel for betraying him alongside Celebrimbor and refuses to hand over his Ring of Power to her, prompting a boss fight between the two.
• What the Hell, Hero?:
  • Calls out Celebrimbor after defeating the Ringwraith that was once Helm Hammerhand and seeing that Celebrimbor was just as complicit in the man's corruption as Sauron himself.
    Talion: You stood beside Sauron as he gave these kings the very rings that doomed them!
    • Celebrimbor replies, not unreasonably, that he was deceived by Sauron just like everyone else, but Talion fires back a follow-up that Celebrimbor is unable to refute.
      Talion: Knowing what you know now...still you crafted a New Ring.
  • At the end of the Blade of Galadriel DLC, he snarls this at Eltariel when she urges him not to betray the good man he was by refusing to give up Isildur's Ring, pointing out that she has no right to talk to him about betrayal when it is her and Celebrimbor's fault that he was forced to take up the Ring in the first place.
    Eltariel: Talion, do not betray the Man you were.
    Talion: You speak to me of betrayal?! You abandoned me! You and Celebrimbor! You took EVERYTHING from me!
• Wrecked Weapon: Acharn is the broken hilt of Dirhael's sword, doubling as a Tragic Keepsake. Talion uses it as a makeshift dagger, and completing specific side-missions will see the dagger grow from a shattered longsword to a reforged dagger, courtesy of the Wraith.
• You Are in Command Now: Downplayed. Orcs can't see Celebrimbor, so Talion's followers have always assumed that he's in charge; however, in reality, he was always a joint commander alongside Celebrimbor. After Celebrimbor abandons Talion, he's left as the sole leader of his troops.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness:
  • Talion can pull this on orcs he's dominated, abandoning them to die. However, this can backfire on him in Shadow of War since it undermines his authority with the rest of his army and abandoned orcs can come back looking for revenge.
  • At the end of Shadow of War, Talion refuses to let Celebrimbor dominate Isildur. In response, Celebrimbor takes the New Ring and gives it to Eltariel, dismissing Talion as nothing more than a vessel that he no longer has use for before leaving him for dead.
• You Kill It, You Bought It: After he kills Nazgûl-Isildur and he is abandoned by his allies for it, he takes Isildur's ring to oppose and slow down whichever tyrant beats the other one atop Barad-dûr.
• You Shall Not Pass!: Realizing the futility in fighting Sauron with the Ring of Power, he takes control of Minas Morgul and does this as long as he can against the forces of Mordor until he becomes a ringwraith in the ending.
• Zombie Apocalypse: Can easily invoke this on a regional scale after claiming Isildur's ring. This makes him one of the most powerful of the Nazgûl, able to hold his ground against all of Mordor for decades.

Celebrimbor

Celebrimbor

Race: Elves (Eregion) (formerly)

"It is a gift. We shall use the enemy's weapons against him."

Celebrimbor before his death

Voiced by: Alastair Duncan

A powerful spirit of vengeance who was summoned on the night of Sauron's return by the Black Hand to serve the Dark Lord, but instead possessed the ranger Talion, using him as an instrument for its own revenge.

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• Adaptational Intelligence: In the books, he had no part in forging the One Ring, only the lesser ones; furthermore, he was originally "just" the greatest of the Elven ringmakers, while here he's the only one other than Sauron.
• Adaptational Villainy: He was a fully heroic character in the books, albeit an Unwitting Pawn of Sauron. Here, thanks to heavy exposure to the One Ring before his death, he's severely more Ambiguously Evil. As of Shadow Of War, the "Ambiguously" part is ditched, and he ends up becoming another Evil Overlord-wannabe.
• Aesop Amnesia: As Talion brings up after learning of his part in the fall of Helm Hammerhand, he completely ignored the idea of the corruption of Rings of Power, and decided to create the New Ring anyway, believing it to be perfect and incorruptible.
  Talion: Knowing what you know now...still you crafted a New Ring.
• Ambiguously Evil: If the Bright Lord DLC is anything to go by. After stealing the One Ring from Sauron, his motivation begins to shift from saving his family to dethroning Sauron and ruling in his place. And his reaction just before possessing Talion?
  Celebrimbor: Finally...all will fear me and rejoice!
  • Shadow of War shows that he was involved in Sauron's plot to hand out Nazgûl rings to at least one human king. Celebrimbor claims to have been deceived alongside everyone else, but given that we know he will become more covetous of power later on his motivations are unclear.
• And I Must Scream: After being absorbed by Sauron and turned into the Flaming Eye of Barad-dûr, Celebrimbor spends several years trapped in eternal battle for dominance against his enemy. He is freed after the One Ring is destroyed and Sauron with it.
• Badass Boast: Has plenty of these to go around, often screamed at the top of his lungs.
  • After the Witch-king possesses an Orc to inform Talion that he's coming for him, Celebrimbor has his own message for Sauron.
    Celebrimbor: I COME FOR HIM!
  • After recapturing the fortress of Núrnen from Brûz:
    Celebrimbor: Here, my enemies will find no weakness! No mercy! Only the unassailable strength of MY ARMY!!!
• Bad Powers, Good People: The Wraith is a good guy, but he has some freaky and dangerous powers, including the ability to mind-control Uruks. Or is it?. By the end of Shadow of War, he's become an example of Bad Powers, Bad People.
• Big Bad Ensemble: With Sauron, Shelob and Zog the Eternal in Shadow of War. After forging his own Ring of Power, Celebrimbor sets his sights on dominating Sauron and ruling Middle-earth as the Bright Lord. In Shelob's Bad Future vision, he actually succeeded.
• Body Surf: His wraith form can take over willing hosts. While Talion wasn't exactly a willing host, he was his initial host due to the Human Sacrifice aspect.
• Byronic Hero: He's incredibly ruthless, coolly advising Talion on how to best demoralize and terrify the Orcs, and enjoying his branding and Interrogation powers a bit much. If you've read The Silmarillion and know who he's related to, this probably isn't a surprise. To be precise, he's Fëanor's grandson and his father, Curufin, was said to be the most like his father of all of his brothers, but far calmer and more calculating. ^note However, in Tokien's canon, it was noted that he did many things to make up for the many wrongdoings his grandfather and father did.
• Canon Character All Along: Initially known only as the Wraith, he's eventually revealed to be Celebrimbor.
• Can't Argue with Elves: Celebrimbor isn't shy about pointing out the many areas in which the Elves are superior to Men. However, he doesn't seem to mind when Talion pokes fun at this attitude.
  Celebrimbor: One Elven archer is worth three Gondorian archers.
  Talion: Really, only three?
  • Ultimately, however, Talion decides that he can argue with this specific Elf when Celebrimbor crosses the line by ordering him to Brand Isildur. From that point on, he never agrees with Celebrimbor any more.
• Consummate Liar: Technically averted. Celebrimbor never really tells a lie over the course of the games, but he has a bad habit of withholding information and dealing in half-truths. Most notoriously, he claims that that the Black Hand is responsible for his bond to Talion (while the Black Hand performed the bonding ritual, it was Celebrimbor who chose to bond with Talion and performed the actual bonding) and that he must be destroyed in order to break the "curse" and allow Talion to die (this is pretty much a falsehood, since Celebrimbor is capable of severing his bond to Talion at any time; however, he is planning on holding up his end of the bargain and releasing Talion after the Black Hand's death, but Talion convinces him otherwise). However, it's telling during gameplay with developers, when Celebrimbor calls Sauron a "master of lies", one of them chuckles and says, "No, you are."
• Cruel and Unusual Death: It's revealed in a flashback that he was beaten by Sauron with his own smithing hammer (that Sauron, under the guise of Annatar, gifted to Celebrimbor at the beginning of their partnership) until his head apparently split open, then had the spike of that hammer driven into his brain. ^note Also a Shout-Out to his death in Tolkien's canon, where he was also tortured and executed by Sauron. Whatever Sauron did to him was so awful that he gave up the locations of the Seven Rings, though he held out on the locations of the Three.
• Cultural Posturing: Constantly. For instance, when Talion finds a Númenórean helmet, Celebrimbor says that the Númenórean craftsmen did an adequate job in making it. Talion will snark that was the closest Celebrimbor ever came to complementing a fellow craftsman.
• The Dark Side Will Make You Forget:
  • Due to the Ring's influence, as the Bright Lord DLC progresses, it becomes clear that he's becoming more and more disinterested in his original interests of saving his family and saving Middle-earth, which is slowly being replaced by a desire to dominate and rule Mordor as the Bright Lord.
  • In Shadow of War, Talion asks "How much of your soul was lost in that Ring?" Celebrimbor tells him that the deaths of their families no longer matter, and all he cares about is bringing order to Mordor.
• Deadpan Snarker: In Shadow of War, he likes to make snarky comments about Orc culture, artifacts, history, and even deaths. And not just about Orcs, either:
  Talion (recently resurrected): I'll never get used to dying.
  Celebrimbor: Perhaps we should stop dying, then.
• Deuteragonist: He's Talion's battle partner, the source of Talion's power and undeath, he's playable in his own DLC scenario, he's one of the causes of the plot, being the one who helped perfect the One Ring, and, by way of Fusion Dance, he's half of the Eye of Sauron.
• Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu?: In a flashback, it's revealed that he stole the One Ring literally from right under Sauron's nose and tried to wield it against him. It didn't work out.
  • Much of the dialogue in The Bright Lord is him telling the Dark Lord to cram it where the sun don't shine. Too bad he couldn't quite back up his trash talk, but you should have already known that.
• Doomed by Canon: There was no way he was going to come out on top of Sauron, since the games are set before the events of the main trilogy.
• Dramatically Missing the Point: As shown by his actions as a Wraith, he believes that the fact that he lost to Sauron and his corruption was due to the One Ring being forged with Sauron's power. He completely ignores the fact that he forged the rings of the Nazgûl, albeit at Sauron's behest, and they ended up causing corruption on their own. Predictably, when he forges one himself using Talion's body, his own corruption increases significantly, if he were not Evil All Along.
• Enemy Within: Inverted. He quickly befriends Talion after they wind up in the same body, and they get along pretty well after that (although they can still bicker on occasion). Played absolutely straight after Talion frees Isildur. Celebrimbor decides he's had enough of him. However, unlike most examples of this trope, he opts to abandon Talion's body for a host willing to work with him rather than force him to obey.
• Everyone Has Standards: Mixed with Even Evil Has Standards, but despite his propensity to brand Orcs and his plans to dominate Sauron, even he thinks that trying to control a Balrog is just plain crazy. He also agrees with Talion that something as destructive as Tar Goroth can't be allowed to run loose in Middle-earth.
• Eye Colour Change: In a flashback, his irises turn from blue to yellow when he succumbs to the One Ring's corruption.
• Evil All Along:
  • His distinct brutality, cruelty and general presence over Talion show through in Shadow of War almost from the beginning, raising the question as to what degree this is going on. Is Talion with the New Ring merely a vessel to reclaim his Bright Lord mantle as opposed to the stated goal of defeating Sauron for its own sake? He did lie to Talion about their condition in the first game and certainly doesn't hesitate to leave Talion for dead and possess Eltariel the moment it becomes clear Talion won't go through with certain "steps" (by mercy killing Isildur's wraith). Both Shelob and Eltariel, far more knowledgeable characters than Talion, view Celebrimbor with icy hostility.
  • A flashback shows that Celebrimbor willingly helped Sauron with dominating Men to be Ringwraiths, calling into question if he was ever good in the first place.
    Sauron: In the body of Elf or Man, you are unchanged, Celebrimbor!
    Shelob (to Talion): You saw Celebrimbor for what he really was.
• Evil Counterpart: Ultimately, he turns out to be this when compared to Talion. While the Ranger is willing to do anything to just be Together in Death with his wife and son, and has a Heel Realization that results in him refusing to Brand Isildur (a misguided human not unlike himself, instead of an Uruk or Olog), Celebrimbor ends up Jumping Off the Slippery Slope if he were not Evil All Along, and seems to decide that vengeance and power is more important than his family. However, when Talion makes his fateful choice, Celebrimbor points out that Sauron can't actually be killed forever like Talion seems to think, since they have no idea where the original One Ring is. Nobody has a better plan than what Celebrimbor is proposing.
• Evil Makes You Ugly: He already had scars in Shadow of Mordor, but by Shadow of War his face has become nothing but scars; according to Celebrimbor, this is because he put almost all of his life force into the New Ring. Even during the Bright Lord DLC his wraith form is already scarred, although this is less because of his corruption and more because of his character model being reused, and in the Shadows of the Past missions in Shadow of War, his wraith form is practically identical to his normal appearance, with the exception of its blue glow and white eyes.
• Eviler than Thou: According to Shelob's Bad Future vision, he would have enslaved Sauron and subjugated all of Middle-Earth. It really says something when Sauron is preferable.
• Facepalm of Doom: The Wraith's branding involves placing his hand on the side of his target's face.
• Fantastic Racism: Celebrimbor looks down on all non-Elf races. He assures Talion that it's okay to brainwash Orcs, since they are Always Chaotic Evil. When forsaking Talion, he openly appeals to Eltariel, saying an elf host would be far better than a human one.
• Fatal Flaw: His Protagonist-Centered Morality mindset. Celebrimbor is an Evil Counterpart to Talion who is willing to cross any moral boundary to get what he wants, yet when his actions become similar to Sauron's, he believes he's justified. Because he believes himself to be justified in everything he does, he often refuses to take responsibility for his actions, even when it's revealed he willingly helped Sauron create the nine rings that would create the Ringwraiths. This ultimately causes Talion to turn against him when he refuses to brand Isildur, which leads Celebrimbor to abandon Talion to die.
• Fighting Spirit: In the most literal sense given he is a living soul attached to a dead man. During certain combo strings one can see the Wraith attacking on each off-swing Talion gives, making it appear that he is mimicking his host's attacks — or has simply taken control of Talion.
• Foil: To Galadriel. He seems to be everything she fears becoming. Also to Talion. See Evil Counterpart.
• Forced to Watch: After defeating him, Sauron punished Celebrimbor for his audacity in stealing the One Ring by forcing him to watch the murders of his wife and daughter before his own death.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: While a High-elf blacksmith isn't exactly a nobody, he is singlehandedly opposing a Maia that took an alliance of men and elves to push back last time — and Shelob, at least, believes that he'd actually have succeeded in conquering Middle-earth had Talion remained on his side. The Blade of Galadriel DLC confirms that he is actually still alive, and now that Sauron is dead, Middle-earth is short of one Dark Lord....
• Fusion Dance: He and Sauron are fused into one being, becoming the flaming eye at the top of Barad-dûr.
• Generation Xerox: Like his grandfather and father before him, what starts as a justified wish for revenge against the Dark Lord spirals into committing atrocities for rather unconnected reasons. Quite tragic considering he was once the white sheep of the family.
• Gone Horribly Wrong: As it turns out, the Wraith remembered enough of his life to understand that Sauron was responsible for a lot of his misery before he died. Whoops.
• Good Counterpart: More like less evil counterpart, as he's the Bright Lord to Sauron's Dark Lord. Shelob actually sees him as worse since he can win the war and rule over Middle-earth, unlike Sauron who is still too weakened.
• Ghost Amnesia: The Wraith can't remember his life, but certain items help to restore his memories and, consequently, increase his powers. He can't even remember his own name until Gollum leads him to the right artifact. While the ending of the Bright Lord DLC suggests that he might have been faking it, his entry in the Appendices of Shadow of War confirms that the amnesia was genuine.
• Headbutting Heroes: With Talion in the Shadow of War, on two notable occasions.
  • During the siege of Minas Ithil, Celebrimbor's top priority is obtaining its palantír, while Talion would rather secure it by helping his fellow Men defeat the besiegers. Since their end goal is the same, Celebrimbor generally goes along with Talion's efforts, although he never misses a chance to remind Talion of the palantír. (Talion's frequent visits to Shelob, whom Celebrimbor distrusts, doesn't help matters.)
  • Upon defeating Isildur and glimpsing his past, Talion opts to Mercy Kill him, rather than dominate him as Celebrimbor intended. To make matters worse, Celebrimbor reveals that his plan is to enslave Sauron rather than destroying him, which Talion flatly rejects. This time, Celebrimbor opts to sever ties with Talion and leave him to die.
• He Who Fights Monsters: Sauron mocks Celebrimbor by telling him he will "become what he seeks to destroy." In Shadow of War, Celebrimbor's stated desire to "bring order" to Mordor is exactly what Sauron set out to do after the fall of Morgoth in The Silmarillion, indicating that this trope has come around full circle. It then becomes a Literal Metaphor when Sauron absorbs Celebrimbor at the end.
• Hijacking Cthulhu: His endgame in Shadow of War is to turn Sauron into his thrall and conquer Middle-earth. And in the timeline Shelob saw in a vision and seeks to prevent, he would have succeeded.
• Hoist by His Own Petard:
  • He died an Ironic Death when Sauron killed him by beating him to death with his own smithing hammer.
  • As revealed by Shelob, him abandoning Talion after he refuses to brand Isildur was what doomed him. Had he still possessed Talion, Celebrimbor would have won and enslaved Sauron.
• Horrible Judge of Character: All of his allies betray him, with the exception of Eltariel, who isn't too fond of him anyway. As a twist, he betrays Talion instead of the other way around. When he admires Brûz the Chopper, that should have clued player in that Brûz would try to betray him, too.
• Hypocrite: Celebrimbor suffers from Protagonist-Centered Morality. Once, Celebrimbor will scoff at the Feral Tribe that they dominate that which they can't control, and kill those they can't dominate. Sound familiar?
• Jumped Off The Slippery Slope: At some point, his Roaring Rampage of Revenge went from Well-Intentioned Extremist to The Dark Side Will Make You Forget.
• Kick the Dog: Abandoning Talion for Eltariel can at least fall into the excuse that it was for his plan. Then he decides to twist the knife and dismisses Talion as nothing more than a replaceable vessel.
• Laser-Guided Karma: Face it, ending up being merged with Sauron after trying to Brand him is pretty appropriate. Made even more karmaic when you remember that he could have won over Sauron had he stuck with Talion.
• Light Is Not Good: While Celebrimbor is ultimately well-intentioned, and sincerely wants to defend Middle-earth from the shadow, he is very ruthless, downright vicious, and willing to cross any moral boundary fighting against Sauron. Unlike Talion, Celebimbor does desire power for its own sake, as well. His harsh blue light becomes more forboding when compared to Eltariel and Galadriel's soft golden light motif.
• Limited Wardrobe: He is never seen without his blue & grey armor. He had it on when he stole the One Ring, was wearing it when he died, and still has it on as a wraith hundreds of years later. Exaggerated — perhaps to the point of parody — with the playable skin added to Shadow of War in July 2018, which is the only skin in the game whose appearance is completely unaffected by swapping out gear.
• The Minionmaster: In Shadow of Mordor's The Bright Lord DLC, he is capable of branding Uruks en masse via Flash Brand (an upgrade to Wraith Flash), enabling him to quickly create a small army.
• Mirror Character: It becomes clear by the end of Shadow of War that in his pursuit for vengeance against Sauron, he has become no different from Sauron. Further emphasized by the fact that he and Sauron literally become one during their final battle, and the Blade of Galadriel DLC confirms he survived because his soul is tied to the New Ring which continues to exist even after the One Ring was destroyed. At this point, their only difference seems to be that he has no lesser rings to control others with... yet.
  • Celebrimbor poured a significant portion of his power into the New Ring, much like Sauron did with the One Ring.
  • Celebrimbor's stated desire to "bring order to Mordor" should have set off alarm bells in the heads of any player familiar with The Silmarillion, since that's exactly what Sauron set out to do after Morgoth's fall.
• Motive Decay: Late into Shadow of War, he admits it's no longer about revenge for him, but rather installing a new rule on Middle-earth.
• Near-Villain Victory: At the end of Shadow of War, Shelob tells a dying Talion that in the future she originally saw, Celebrimbor enslaved Sauron and went on to become a tyrant who was just as ruthless but far more successful, and that Talion narrowly averted that future by refusing to let Celebrimbor dominate Isildur. Even without Talion, with Eltariel as his host Celebrimbor almost succeeds in dominating Sauron using his New Ring. However, Sauron resists long enough to cut the New Ring off Eltariel's hand — freeing himself — and then returns the favor by absorbing him.
• Never My Fault: After seeing Helm Hammerhand's memories in Shadow of War, Talion calls out Celebrimbor for crafting the New Ring despite knowing what the Rings of Power were ultimately used to do. Celebrimbor's response is to smugly remind Talion that he was complicit in forging the New Ring, conveniently ignoring that the ranger was probably unaware of the rings' history. This is about the point at which Talion seems to finally realize that Celebrimbor is not as infallible as he seems even then.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Thanks to his Roaring Rampage of Revenge, he's the reason Sauron gets his One Ring back.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Even when Talion killed Isildur, there are still 8 Ringwraiths, each one powerful on their own. Losing one isn't that terrible, but at that point he is so crazed by power that he considers the slightest misstep betrayal. Heck, nothing would have stopped him from staying silent about it and turning Talion into Isildur's replacement for disobeying him after they dominated Sauron. Once the two separate, he is doomed to fail.
• Not Quite Dead: When Sauron killed him years ago. The Blade of Galadriel DLC confirms he managed to survive against Sauron until the latter perished, and is now free again since while Sauron was killed when the One Ring was destroyed, Celebrimbor's Ring still exists...
• No, You: After Talion calls Celebrimbor out on creating a new ring despite knowing their danger, he points out that they forged the new ring, as Talion ended the first game by suggesting the idea and willfully used Celebrimbor's hammer.
• Obviously Evil: It is vaguely plausible early in the series that Celebrimbor may really just be a Knight Templar willing to sacrifice anything or anyone to defeat Sauron. The line of missions involving Brûz clarify his moral character. Listening to Brûz after shaming is possibly the most horrifying thing in any Lord of the Rings book, movie, or game.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Celebrimbor is arrogant to the point that he is willing to challenge Sauron directly and is confident that he can defeat him. When encountering Carnán however, he advises Talion to immediately surrender to her, warning that he cannot defeat her.
• Our Elves Are Different: Tolkien's Elves are already very powerful beings, superior to humans in speed, stamina and wisdom. Being a ghost has given the Wraith a great deal of mystical power on top of that. As a close relative of Fëanor, he qualifies as a High Elf, said to be much wiser and more powerful than "normal" Elves.
• Pay Evil unto Evil: He wielded the One Ring against Sauron and his Uruks, turning them into his murderous army.
• Pinned to the Wall: One of the abilities for the Wraith to unlock is the "Pin in Place" ability that will temporarily keep Uruks from running away... provided they aren't immune to ranged attacks.
• Player Character: You control him during the Bright Lord DLC in Shadow of Mordor, the Shadows of the Past missions in Shadow of War, and the Final Battle against Sauron in Shadow of War.
• Playing with Fire: The Wraith's powers tend to be linked with fire, such as causing campfires and grog to explode or shooting arrows of mystical fire. Word of God is that this is tied to his Ultimate Blacksmith nature.
• Pride: According to Word of God, Celebrimbor thinks that since the new Ring wasn't touched by Sauron, it won't be corrupted. It doesn't quite click with him that it was not some abstract dark influence that made the One Ring evil: it was power, plain and simple, and the will to use it to dominate others, and Celebrimbor is too short-sighted to realize that he made his new Ring in exactly the same way.
• Promoted to Playable: Shadow of Mordor's The Bright Lord DLC allows you to play as him when he was still alive, and is set after he stole the one Ring. He is also playable in some flashbacks in Shadow of War, and is the playable character during the final fight against Sauron.
• Pure Is Not Good: Celebrimbor certainly thinks it is, since his New Ring is untouched by Sauron's influence. Eltariel is not convinced and questions just what his ring is purely made out of.
• Scars Are Forever: In his case, they really are. Despite being nothing but a soul, his face still has the scars he received when Sauron bashed his face in. By Shadow of War, his condition has worsened due to him putting almost all of his life force into the New Ring.
• Sharing a Body: His soul is bound to Talion's body, and they alternate control as needed. He controls the body in the Wraith World (including the use of his bow, Azkâr), while Talion does so in the normal world.
• Shipping Torpedo: Scolds Talion for having romantic thoughts so soon after his wife and son's murders, and also because he's dead and Lithariel isn't.
• Sociopathic Hero: He starts off as a fairly well-intentioned Anti-Hero, but as his war drags on, he slides more and more into sociopathy thanks to a generous helping of Motive Decay. While he's always considered orcs to be completely disposable (and Talion always has as well, for that matter), he's the one who comes up with the idea of shaming captains, with the stated intent of breaking them, and he eventually persuades Talion to come around to his point of view (although it should be noted that their target Brûz is practically encouraging such sentiment with his antics). Most importantly, in Shadow of War's climax, he reveals that he also considers Talion himself to be nothing more than a way to reach and defeat Sauron. Until he reveals this, he is arguably a hero. Afterwards, not so much.
• This Cannot Be!: When Sauron cuts off Eltariel's fingers, depriving Celebrimbor of his Ring and his host, Celebrimbor just seems to stand there helplessly, staring at his hands, right before Sauron forcibly merges with him.
• Today, X. Tomorrow, the World!: When visiting the fort in Lithlad, Celebrimbor says that while the fort isn't strategically important, they must conquer it at some point to hold more power in Mordor — and beyond.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: He's a lot colder and more ruthless in Shadow of War, to the point of even leaving Talion to die after he kills Isildur. Crafting another Ring of Power certainly had its downsides.
• Tragic Hero: In life, Celebrimbor was an elf prince famed for the beautiful pieces he forged. He was one day visited by a charming elf who convinced him to forge rings of power and distribute them to certain men, elves, and dwarves. Before forging the final and most powerful ring, he realized his patron was actually the Great Deceiver Sauron and sought to use the power of the One Ring to end Sauron's reign of terror and redeem himself, but Sauron had prepared for such a plot and imprisoned the elf prince. Celebrimbor was beaten to death with his own smithing hammer soon after, after watching his wife and child die before him. Celebrimbor the Wraith cannot be called a tragic hero, however. He is something far worse.
• Tyrant Takes the Helm: According to Shelob, had Talion stayed with him to the bitter end, this is what would have happened; they would have had their revenge upon Sauron, but at the cost of the Bright Lord becoming a far worse threat than the Dark Lord ever was.
  Shelob: When you and Celebrimbor forged a new Ring of Power, I saw where your path ended; locked in battle with Sauron at the summit of Barad-dûr...and you won. Sauron was enslaved and the Bright Lord rose in his place. The armies of Mordor marched forth under his banner and Middle-earth fell under his heel. That is the future I fought against, the future you prevented because you saw Celebrimbor for what he was.
• Ultimate Blacksmith: In addition to his connection to the Forge Towers (activated through striking a spectral anvil with a spectral hammer), he inscribes mystical runes into Talion's weapons and can reforge them after completing enough weapon challenges (Shadow of Mordor), or forge a wide variety of weapons/armor/runes based on the enemies Talion's defeated (Shadow of War). On a story level, he forged the Rings of Power on Sauron's behalf, inscribed the heat-activated text on the One Ring, and created a New Ring to rival the One Ring (in more ways than one).
• The Unfettered: In contrast to Talion, he is willing to cross any line to stop Sauron. This is not remotely a good thing.
• Ungrateful Bastard: Due to his Fantastic Racism, he despises the very Orcs who gave him enough power to face Sauron. When he goes mad with the New Ring's power, he abandons Talion without a second thought once he disobeys him, despite the fact that without Talion's suffering, death and help, the Elf would never have gotten anywhere near Sauron.
• Unreliable Narrator: Whenever he recaps his history, his fight with Sauron takes place on a huge battlefield, with massive armies on both sides. In the Bright Lord DLC, their battle takes place in a relatively small area inside an uruk camp, with only a few captains at his side. Since the playable region has several locations that look more like the area seen in flashbacks, it's likely that Celebrimbor is exaggerating the scale of the fight.
  • This is likely more due to limitations with the game engine. The Shadows of the Past sidequests in Shadow of War reveal that Celebrimbor's operations stretched across all six of the game's playable regions (not counting Mordor's Bright Lord DLC story, which takes place in Udûn), and they were extensive enough to have necessitated the creation of barrows in five of those regions.
• Victory by Endurance: The Blade of Galadriel DLC implies that he managed to outlive Sauron. Pretty impressive, when you think about the fact that their wills dueled for decades.
• Villain Protagonist: During the Final Battle with Sauron, he serves as the Player Character in an inverted Dual Boss alongside Eltariel. However, Shelob had, not long before, revealed to Talion that if Celebrimbor managed to defeat Sauron, the result would be even worse than if he loses, making him serve as this instead.
• Walking Spoiler: All that's initially known about the Wraith is that he's a dead elf. Everything else gets revealed later on.
• Warp Whistle: The spectral Forge Towers serve as this for the Wraith, serving as points for respawn, fast-travel, and manually progressing time.
• Weaponized Teleportation: When the Shadow Strike is unlocked, the Wraith can teleport to a shot arrow and immediately attack the target.
• Winged Soul Flies Off at Death: In the Distant Finale, when Sauron explodes, one of his sparks that fades away is blue; the last remnants of the Wraith.
• You Have Failed Me: The reason for his below mentioned You Have Outlived Your Usefulness. Aside from his dismissal, he also seems to view Talion as having failed due to refusing to dominate Isildur, and giving him a Mercy Kill instead.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: At the end of Shadow of War, Celebrimbor dismisses Talion as nothing but a vessel he no longer has use for after their falling out and gives the New Ring to Eltariel, possessing her and leaving Talion to die.

Eltariel

Race: Elves (Lothlórien)

Eltariel, the Blade of Galadriel

"Great threats make for unlikely alliances."

Voiced by: Laura Bailey

An Elven warrior and assassin in service to Lady Galadriel, sent to fight those corrupted by the Rings of Power. After fighting alongside Talion and Celebrimbor in Shadow of War, she's the Player Character in the Blade of Galadriel DLC, set after the story of the main game.

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• Action Girl: She has centuries of experience hunting the Nazgûl, and has become very adept at killing them. Her Establishing Character Moment shows her fending off several of the Ringwraiths including the Witch-king singlehandedly to save Talion's life. And during the final battle, she takes on Sauron herself alongside Celebrimbor.
• Anti-Villain: She took Celebrimbor's offer because she had became tired of hunting the Nazgûl due to their immortality. Galadriel doesn't allow her to return home before they are dead, and so she felt that dominating Sauron would make her job much easier.
• The Beastmaster: While unwilling to dominate orcs to serve her, she is capable of taming animals like caragors, graugs and drakes. Presumably, she uses Galadriel's light to soothe them rather than enslaving them.
• Big Damn Hero:
  • Appears out of nowhere to save Talion from being turned into a Ringwraith by the Witch-king...by killing the Ranger.
  • She repeats the stunt during Helm Hammerhand's siege of Khargukôr, dropping in to save Talion from getting cut down by the Nazgûl.
• Canon Foreigner: A game-exclusive character.
• Conscience Makes You Go Back: One of the reasons she ignores Galadriel's invitation to return home is that Talion is a Ringwraith because of her.
• Contrasting Sequel Main Character: While Talion shared his body with someone else's wraith and is completely willing to use slavery to reach his goals, Eltariel's wraith form doesn't say a word, she doesn't like the idea of domination, and she uses her limited arrows when quick-firing instead of unlimited daggers.
• Determined Defeatist: By the time she meets Talion, she seems to be resigned to her fate to hunt and kill unkillable enemies in a hostile land indefinitely. It doesn't make her any less lethal in combat.
  • Deconstructed in the Blade of Galadriel DLC, which reveals that Eltariel fully expects to die in Mordor and is not at all happy with Galadriel for condemning her to this fate...and then sort-of reconstructed at the end, when learning of Nazgûl!Talion's Back Story while banishing him motivates Eltariel to postpone Galadriel's invitation to return home in favor of remaining in Mordor to continue the fight against Sauron's forces — presumably including the Nazgûl, including Talion himself.
• Disintegrator Ray: Besides her more mundane weaponry, she can use the light of Galadriel to "infuse" enemies with light until they are blinded and stunned (and glowing), and such enemies can then be instantly and painlessly disintegrated with one more shard of light.
• Dramatic Irony: She saves Talion before he is forcibly turned into a Ringwraith. Later, she sides with Celebrimbor, causing Talion to willingly become one.
• Drunk on the Dark Side: When she becomes Celebrimbor's vessel she comments on the power it gives her in an enthusiastic tone and during the fight with Sauron he shouts about her and Galadriel's power.
• Enemy Mine: Her task is to kill Talion, but the situation forces them to work together. Similarly, her refusal to dominate Orcs means that she has to make them cooperate with her out of their own free will.
• Everyone Has Standards: She is completely willing to kill, even for revenge, but she hates the idea of domination since it's basically slavery.
• Fingore: Sauron slices Celebrimbor's ring off her hand, taking off her pinky and ring finger. In the Blade of Galadriel DLC, she gains fingers made of light after putting Celebrimbor's ring back on.
• Godzilla Threshold:
  • Celebrimbor is shocked that Galadriel would be employing assassins. Eltariel invokes the trope by retorting that things have gotten that bad. Galadriel's tone in the DLC's opening cutscene implies that she is pretty desperate, as she doesn't allow Eltariel to return home to Lothlórien until the Nazgûl are dead.
  • She hits this herself near the end of the base game when it's shown that Celebrimbor can actually defeat the Nazgûl but is also on the path to being just as bad as Sauron. Eltariel sides with him over Talion anyway, because she's been trapped in a Forever War with the Nazgûl so long that any way out looks good to her.
• Handicapped Badass: After Sauron cuts off two of her fingers to deprive her of Celebrimbor's ring, she still fights against the Dark Lord's legions with her own Orcs. Downplayed because she gains two new fingers made of light by putting the ring back on.
• Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: Played with. While obscured by her hood, she has blonde hair and is one of the good guys devoted to stop Sauron at all costs. With that said, she throws her lot with an aspirant Evil Overlord such as Celebrimbor in hopes to defeat Sauron and becomes a Well-Intentioned Extremist. She deeply regrets this move and works for many years to atone for it. Her powers in combat are also more benevolent in nature (no surprise, given that Lady Galadriel serves as her source) than Talion's despite wielding Celebrimbor's ring, she is unwilling to dominate her enemies like him.
• Heal Thyself: Eltariel has the power to heal her injuries using Galadriel's Radiance, instead of draining her enemies' life force like Talion did.
• He Who Fights Monsters:
  • Invokes this regarding Talion, fearing what effect the influence of the Ring is having on him and Celebrimbor.
    Eltariel: I struck down men corrupted by those Rings...do not become one of them.
  • Ironically, this happens to her to a degree, as she helps Celebrimbor discard Talion and willingly becomes the Bright Lord's new host for the sake of striking directly at Sauron.
• Hold the Line: Her official purpose.
  Eltariel: In the war against darkness, sometimes stalemate is victory.
• Hypocrite:
  • Given she spends most of the game wary of Talion and Celebrimbor because of how similar they are to Sauron, it can be pretty jarring that when Talion ultimately turns on Celebrimbor for effectively wanting to become the next Sauron, Eltariel sides with Celebrimbor. How much this was her choice, and how much of this was Celebrimbor corrupting/tempting her with power — of which the New Ring had plenty of too — is unclear.
  • In her DLC, she urges Talion not to betray who he was and become a Nazgûl. He angrily retorts that she's the one who betrayed him in the first place, which is why he took up Isildur's ring. She acknowledges the truth of this and after defeating him stays in Mordor to do right by him by continuing his fight.
• I Choose to Stay: After dispatching Talion in her DLC, she ignores Galadriel's invitation to go West, and remains in Mordor to continue fighting, avenging Talion.
• Ink-Suit Actor: She bears more than a passing resemblance to Laura Bailey, her voice actress, apart from having blue eyes and blonde hair.
• In the Hood: The only time she doesn't wear one is in the mobile version of Shadow of War, where she has a long blond ponytail instead.
• It's All My Fault: Throughout her story DLC, she is clearly horrified of what Talion became because of her actions.
• It's Personal: After seeing Talion's Back Story when dispatching him, she realizes just how much Talion sacrificed, and remains in Mordor to continue fighting the Nazgûl.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Eltariel tends to be dismissive (at best) of her orc allies and can even betray some of them should the player choose to. She also tends to be a Deadpan Snarker. However, when interacting with Talion, she does exhibit signs of regret for how her actions affected him, and she does try to treat him civilly.
  • It's telling that Eltariel is sharpening Urfael when Talion wakes up in Cirith Ungol's barrows (after Eltariel mercy-killed him), and she hands it back to him before they leave to confront the Nazgûl at Shelob's lair.
• Legacy Character:
  • Invoked by Celebrimbor while privately discussing Eltariel with Talion.
    Celebrimbor: Have you thought about why Eltariel was selected to be Galadriel's Blade?
    Talion: I can't presume to know what is in an Elf's mind. Surely this Galadriel would send the best.
    Celebrimbor: I don't question whether she is the best...only whether she is the first.
  • Confirmed in the Appendices, which reveal that Eltariel is the latest in a long line of Blades of Galadriel, and that only one Blade is active at a time.
  • Also confirmed in the Blade of Galadriel DLC, with a dark twist: previous Blades that Galadriel dispatched to Mordor...never came back. A major sidequest in the DLC is avenging these Fallen Blades by killing their killers and retrieving their equipment.
  • ...and (seemingly) subverted In-Universe, in that Eltariel herself fully expects to be this, but the final cutscene reveals that she survives the War of the Ring.
• Light 'em Up: Her gameplay is all about using light for both offensive and defensive purposes, ranging from blinding and killing enemies to healing herself in battle.
• Long-Range Fighter: While she's no less capable in close range, her ranged attacks are far more potent than Talion's, allowing her to blind groups of enemies with a cone of light and quickly executing them with bolts of light that can be upgraded to chain to multiple targets.
• Mercy Kill: She "kills" Talion as one, though he eventually returns as a full-fledged Nazgûl later.
• My God, What Have I Done?:
  • When she realizes that Talion became one of the nine Nazgûl because of her actions.
  • Seeing Talion's memories and realizing how her actions not only led to the above, they turned a man who was trying to exact revenge on Sauron for killing his family into one of his servants.
• My Greatest Failure: Her decision to take the New Ring from Celebrimbor and to leave Talion to die after the latter refuses to continue the assault. She ends up regretting this moment for a long time, especially after she finds out what happened to Talion.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero:
  • In Act 3, it is implied that part of the reason Eltariel never turned to dark magic to combat Sauron was not only because she knew it would corrupt her, but because she did not honestly believe it would work anyway. Talion and Celebrimbor defeating Isildur once and for all ironically seems to convince her that making a Deal with the Devil might be worth it after all.
  • Averted through sheer dumb luck more than anything else. Shelob states that if Celebrimbor were to be victorious he would become worse than Sauron. Eltariel tries to help Celebrimbor triumph over Sauron but ultimately fails without Talion's help.
  • Accepting Celebrimbor's offer and abandoning Talion had the side-effect of Talion picking up Isildur's ring and becoming a ringwraith; and thus is now one of her targets. As she seems to consider him a friend, her mission is now even harder than before.
• No Body Left Behind: The light of Galadriel can vaporize orcs if they are affected by it for too long. Yes, even captains.
• Power Palms: The "Light of Galadriel" that she wields, which has the same source as the Phial of Galadriel given to Frodo, is contained in a device attached to her left hand. She can use it to create a barrier of holy light, or fire beams capable of blinding and disintegrating enemies.
• Pragmatic Hero: She's clearly not happy about working with Talion and Celebrimbor, but acknowledges Sauron is a far greater threat.
  Celebrimbor: Since when does Galadriel work with assassins?
  Eltariel: Great threats make for unlikely alliances. You know this better than most.
  • Deconstructed harshly when she makes the pragmatic choice to accept the New Ring and allow Celebrimbor to possess her to take the fight to Sauron, while leaving Talion to die.
• Promoted to Playable: She's the Player Character in the Blade of Galadriel story DLC.
• Reassigned to Antarctica: Implied. Eltariel has been effectively banished until she can kill the Nazgûl, who cannot actually die. Unlike most examples of this trope, it's stated in the Appendices that she accepted the assignment with relish, but by the time she meets Talion, the strain of fighting a one-Elf Forever War is clearly taking its toll on her. Eventually Galadriel takes pity on her and lets her come home without completing her mission.
• Red Baron: Her enemies refer to her as the Blade of Galadriel.
• Sadistic Choice: Either accept Celebrimbor's offer to act as his host to fight Sauron or stay trapped in a bleak Forever War with the Nazgûl. It's no wonder she went with the former.
• Sequel Hook: Eltariel lives to see the destruction of Sauron, but senses that Celebrimbor's spirit is now freed and he is calling to her.
• She-Elf of Kryptonite: Creatures of darkness, like orcs and Nazgûl (and Shelob), are Weakened by the Light, which Eltariel weaponizes to great effect via the Light of Galadriel attached to her left palm. Averted and inverted with the handful of orcs in the Blade of Galadriel DLC who are Immune to Light and Enraged by Light, respectively.
• Slavery Is a Special Kind of Evil: Unlike Talion, Eltariel refuses to recruit orcs through Heel–Face Brainwashing, equating this to slavery. Therefore, she is unable to do so in gameplay and has to bolster her forces by recruiting some shockingly friendly Orcs.
• Sour Supporter: Judging from her comments after killing Ratak the Lawless and recovering the final piece of Fallen Blades gear, she eventually becomes this towards Galadriel. Broken Pedestal may also be in effect here.
  Galadriel: You have done a fine thing. You've avenged your forebears.
  Eltariel: You can save your praise for whoever avenges me...and finds my gear strewn about this cursed land.
• This Cannot Be!: In the Blade of Galadriel DLC, this is essentially Eltariel's reaction to Galadriel telling her that Talion is still alive, albeit now as one of the Ringwraiths.
  Galadriel: Look to Minas Morgul, and the Nazgûl who dwells within it. You know the one of whom I speak.
  Eltariel: He died. I took the New Ring and left him to die!
  Galadriel: He now wears the ring of Isildur. He belongs to the Dark Lord.
• True Sight: Thanks to The Light of Galadriel, or simply due to being a powerful enough Elf^loreElves exist in the Physical and Wraith Worlds, she can see Celebrimbor. Judging by Celebrimbor's shock, it's likely the former.
• Uncertain Doom: Her ultimate fate is unknown as she is last seen with her hand mutilated by Sauron watching as he absorbs Celebrimbor and the two become the flaming eye on Barad-dûr. The story DLC adds to her story, according to which she outlived Sauron, but it's implied that the New Ring has had an effect on her, before the DLC ends with a Sequel Hook.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Eltariel ends up becoming Celebrimbor's vessel after she finds out he could put Sauron's reign to a permanent end by dominating him, despite the possibility of him also becoming a dangerous tyrant. She deeply regrets this.
• Who Are You?: After she kills Talion — and he returns — she's very curious about what kind of person he is, and what it's like to be unable to die.
• You Can't Go Home Again: Galadriel doesn't allow her to return to her home until the Nazgûl are dead — and, as Eltariel is all too aware by the time of Shadow of War, the Nazgûl possess a form of Resurrective Immortality that prevents them from dying permanently, meaning that she's effectively stuck in Mordor for good. Ultimately, she can return home after she defeats Talion in combat, but decides not to and instead continues to face the forces of the Dark Lord.

Baranor

Baranor

Race: Men (Gondor, formerly Harad)

"Set them ablaze! For Gondor!"

Voiced by: Ike Amadi

A Gondorian captain of Haradian origin, Baranor is second-in-command of the defence of the besieged city of Minas Ithil. Recognizing Talion's superior combat prowess and experience with fighting the armies of Mordor, Baranor tends to place himself at the Ranger's disposal whenever their paths happen to cross. Some time after the fall of Minas Ithil, Baranor makes his way to the eastern desert of Lithlad, where he's playable in Shadow of War's "The Desolation of Mordor" DLC.

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• A Day in the Limelight: Baranor is something of a sidekick in Shadow of War, but the Desolation of Mordor DLC gives him a chance to shine.
• Asskicking Leads to Leadership: His backstory reveals that he rapidly rose through the ranks of Minas Ithil's army due to his bravery and superior skill in combat.
• Badass in Distress: Is captured by a duo of Warchiefs after the fall of Minas Ithil.
• Badass Normal: Unlike the other playable characters, Baranor has no magical powers of any sort. Nonetheless, he has his own ways of compensating.
• Bow and Sword in Accord: Is seen skillfully wielding a sword as well as a bow. During the Desolation of Mordor DLC this is seen to its fullest extent, as with the gauntlet Baranor can accurately target and take out Uruk targets at lightning quick speeds.
• Casual Danger Dialogue: Baranor is pretty laid back most of the time. When Talion (who mistook him for an orc) grabs him, throws him to the ground and puts a blade to his sternum, he simply gives a mild (and possibly slightly dazed) "Ho there."
• Canon Foreigner: A game-exclusive characters not from the books.
• Comic-Book Fantasy Casting: He bears a strong physical resemblance to Chadwick Boseman.
• Contrasting Sequel Main Character: He's a playable Muggle in a series where you mass-slaughter orcs with superpowers.
• A Dog Named "Dog": Human variant. Baranor literally means "black man" in Sindarin, and Baranor's birth name of Warad only appears in the Desolation of Mordor DLC, set after the events of Shadow of War. Justified by Baranor's status as Minas Ithil's Token Minority; even the greenest recruit would have absolutely no difficulty figuring out who was being referred to in orders such as "take this to Captain Black Man."
• Empowered Badass Normal: The Desolation of Mordor DLC can see Baranor becoming a one-man death machine even more efficient than Talion, getting to the point he's wiping out Captains as easily as Worms. Justified in that the DLC is basically a speed-and-score challenge.
• Expy: Of Batman. Specifically, gameplay-wise, of Batman: Arkham Series, with the same grapple, gliding, and so on. While Talion heavily borrowed Arkham's combat, the Desolation of Mordor DLC removes the fantastic elements and uses the same gadget-based gameplay to make it resemble an Arkham game even more.
• Fire-Forged Friends:
  • Downplayed with Talion. The two are definitely Bash Brothers, but from Baranor’s perspective, he and the garrison at Minas Ithil were on their last legs when a strange Ranger with bizarre supernatural powers suddenly showed up and offered his support to the defenders, and Baranor didn't ask questions.
  • Played straight with Serka, who also happens to be his long-lost older brother. The two get off on the wrong foot almost immediately: Baranor is disgusted that Serka is willing to (pretend to) work for the Orcs who are pillaging Baranor’s adoptive home, and Baranor’s sabotage of the loot trail gets him chewed out by Serka. A subsequent infiltration/fact-finding mission in Shindram ends with Baranor blowing up the overlord’s grog barrel while he’s standing next to it, causing Serka to accuse Baranor of being a Death Seeker. Things start turning around after Baranor saves Serka from the Circus, and by the end, Serka proudly stands alongside Baranor as the Vanishing Sons besiege Shindram.
• Given Name Reveal: Early on in Desolation of Mordor, it is revealed his true Haradrim name was Warad.
• Happily Adopted: According to his background, Baranor was born in Harad, but adopted by a wealthy family in Minas Ithil and that in time, he came to think of the city as his home.
• Head Swap: Unlike Eltariel, Baranor's playable skin just replaces Talion's head and arms in the main game.
• Humble Hero: Doesn't hesitate to subordinate himself to Talion in front of his men when they're out orc-hunting in Cirith Ungol.
• Hyper-Competent Sidekick: To General Castamir. Since Castamir leads from the rear and is secretly plotting with the Witch-king, it falls to Baranor to co-ordinate the defences.
• I Can't Believe I'm Saying This: He doesn't utter the words, but his tone of voice clearly screams this when Torvin's response to his question about how to use his new Númenórean kite is simply "Just run off the edge of the cliff."
  Baranor (incredulously): Just...run off the edge of the cliff...
• Implied Love Interest: He is very close to Idril. Due to his reaction when he finds out she is still alive, it's implied that he has some sort of crush on her. Their romance is confirmed in her bio in the Desolation of Mordor DLC.
• Instant Expert: He doesn't seem to need any training to utilize his kite (no, "Just run off the edge of the cliff" does not count as training), Super Wrist-Gadget, or any of the various upgrades to his equipment. Perhaps Númenórean technology is just that intuitive.
• Kill It with Fire: Quite a lot of his arsenal revolves around this, such as flame arrows, bombs and a flaming shield.
• Know When to Fold 'Em: When the Witch-king personally arrives at Minas Ithil, Talion orders Baranor to abandon the city and save his men. Baranor doesn't argue.
• Long-Lost Relative: It is quickly revealed in the Desolation of Mordor DLC that the leader of the Vanishing Sons Mercenary Company is his long-lost brother Jagai, who has changed his name to Serka.
• Number Two: To General Castamir. He also serves as this to Talion whenever their paths cross.
• Official Couple: With Idril, as confirmed on her bio in the Desolation of Mordor DLC.
• One-Man Army: He arguably could be this after acquiring his Númenórean gadgetry in the the Desolation of Mordor DLC, but he also hires mercenaries from the local mercenary company to serve as bodyguards, hold captured outposts, and generally harass the orcs.
• Permadeath: A variation; due to his lack of Resurrective Immortality, if he dies in his DLC then everything save for story progress and skill upgrades are reset.
• Promoted to Playable: He's the Player Character in the Desolation of Mordor DLC.
• Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: Downplayed. After the fall of Minas Ithil, Baranor leads a band of surviving Gondorian soldiers to harass the enemy and rescue any captives they can find. He then ends up alone and joins up with Serka and his mercenary band of misfits.
• Sole Survivor: Of the band of surviving Gondorian soldiers on the expedition to Lithlad. The were-wyrms actually get all of them, but Baranor survives thanks to Torvin's timely intervention.
• Straight Man: Plays something of this role for his Large Ham older brother Serka.
• Super Wrist-Gadget: In the Desolation of Mordor DLC, Baranor acquires a multi-purpose gadget of Númenórean origin that functions as a shield, a Grappling-Hook Pistol, and an arm-mounted crossbow to compensate for his lack of magical abilities. To wit:
  • Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: The gauntlet includes a collapsible shield that is nonetheless very capable of nullifying enemy attacks, although Baranor himself cannot attack when the shield is up — unless you count the...
    • Shield Bash: One of Baranor's most powerful abilities, it can be upgraded to set people on fire as he bashes.
  • Grappling-Hook Pistol: One of the gauntlet's most useful features, it's incredibly handy for zipping out of sticky situations and gaining altitude so Baranor can deploy the kite...
    • Chain Pain: ...and it can be upgraded to unleash a Spin Attack that can cut full grown Uruk clean in half!
    • You Will Not Evade Me: It can also snag nearby orcs and drag them over to Baranor, as a technological version of Talion's Shadow Strike Pull.
  • More Dakka: Over the course of Baranor's adventure, he can upgrade his gauntlet to pack a truly breathtaking amount of ammo, including several bombs (that can be further upgraded to lay mines and/or cause orcs caught in the blast to turn on each other). The fully upgraded gauntlet can carry no fewer than 45 projectiles^note 10 steel bolts, 10 fire bolts, 10 poison bolts, 5 bombs, 5 fire bombs, and 5 poison bombs, three times as many as Talion and Celebrimbor's biggest quivers — and since Baranor utilizes Focus but doesn't need to draw back his bow, he can unload nearly all of them right into a hapless captain's face, in what's the closest thing the setting has to a machine gun.
• Token Minority: Seems to be the only Man of Minas Ithil of non-Westernesse stock, though this is explained by his adoption at a young age.
  • Token Enemy Minority: Despite the long history of enmity between his native Harad and his adopted Gondor, he proudly identifies with the latter country. In turn, he's a Captain of Minas Ithil and General Castamir's trusted second-in-command.
  • Averted in the Desolation of Mordor DLC, where he meets up with his brother Serka and a band of Easterlings, who are a swarthy race of Men whose society recalls the nomadic Steppe people of Russia and Central Asia.
• Uncertain Doom: He stays by Idril's side even when they know that standing their ground in Mordor will lead to certain death and is last seen marching towards it with her.
  • While his taking center stage in the Desolation of Mordor DLC erases the above case of the former, that story's end comes on a much more upbeat note, though Baranor indicates he still plans to stay in Mordor, with designs on taking the Vanishing Sons to Gorgoroth and potentially the other regions, where he is most likely to face the now-fully-realized Ringwraith formerly called Talion...
• You Talk Too Much!: Mutters this trope verbatim to himself, referring to Lithlad's overlord, right before he blows up the grog barrel that's sitting beside him.

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