Lady Galadriel remembers her life in Middle-earth as she looks for traces of the deadliest foe of all Free Peoples: Sauron. Lord Elrond and High King Gil-Galad contend with Lady Galadriel's actions. The brave Nori of the Harfoots meet a strange man of mysterious origin. In the Southlands, elven scout Arondir senses a greater evil at work.
Tropes in this episode include:
- Adaptation Distillation: The oath Finrod and a few Elves take to defeat Morgoth, is reminiscent of the Oath of Fëanor.
- Adapted Out:
- There is no mention of Ungoliath in the destruction of the Two Trees.
- The crossing of Helcaraxe.
- All Trolls Are Different: Galadriel fights a snow-troll inhabiting Sauron's stronghold in Forodwaith. The beast has a vaguely humanoid shape, his had has 4 tusks and can crawl over the walls.
- Arc Symbol: Sauron carved one on the corpse of Galadriel’s brother, and it begins to reappear in both premier episodes.
- Artifact of Doom: Theo finds a black broken sword with Sauron's mark on it. Nothing good can come out of this.
- As You Know:
- The Harfoots are introduced discussing about how seeing hunters in Rhovanion this early in the year is a bad omen because last time when they traveled this far, it was during a bad meteorological event called the Great Frost, which made humans to migrate aimlessly. Their worries are actually a foreshadowing for something far worse.
- Medhor reminds Arondir that in the both occasions an Elf and a Human fell in love, it ended only in death and tragedy, as a warning for his secret affair with Bronwyn. Later, Arondir discusses with his warden about how they have been stationed in the Southlands for 79 years.
- Battle Cry: Finrod screaming in Elvish "Valaron caladen! Firuvante!" (By the light of the Valar, you will die!).
- Battle Amongst the Flames: The Elves and Men fight the forces of Morgoth in rain, while everything is burning down around them, with the implication of the scene being The Dagor Bragollach or Battle of the Sudden Flame.
- Bird vs. Serpent: A Great Eagle is shown being defeated and killed by a Fell Beast during the Battle of the Sudden Flame. The scene seems to answer the question of why The Great Eagles didn't help the Fellowship in the movies, a question that was often put by the regular fans.
- Black Magic: Galadriel finds proof in Sauron's stronghold in Forodwaith that he used black magic on Orcs for obscure goals.
- Both Sides Have a Point: Elrond and Galadriel argue about her abandoning her mission and going to live peacefully in Valinor. Galadriel has a good point about the Elves being blind to the possible return of Sauron, but so does Elrond when he tells Galadriel that seeking out Sauron won't bring her any peace, only leading to the death of more Elves on a mission about which she might be mistaken.
- Book Ends: In the first few minutes showing Galadriel's childhood, her older brother, Finrod, tells her an anecdote about why a ship can sail and a rock cannot, and Galadriel asks which light is the sail supposed to follow when the water can reflect the light just as strong. By the end of the episode, Galadriel remembers her brother's words and refuses to return to Valinor by jumping in the water from her ship.
- Came from the Sky: The Stranger is first glimpsed as a falling star before crash landing where Nori discovers he’s man-shaped.
- The Cameo: A brief shot shows a group of Ents watching the shooting star as it passes overhead.
- Cassandra Truth: Galadriel tries to convince Elrond and Gil-galad that the sigil of Sauron she found in Forodwaith is a clear proof that he is somewhere out there planning to strike again. None of them listen to her. Gil-galad arranges for Galadriel to be send away in Valinor, and Elrond thinks she is paranoid from spending too many centuries searching for Sauron.
- Cliffhanger: The pilot ends with the coming of the Stranger in Middle-earth and being discovered by Nori.
- Cool Big Bro: Finrod is introduced as the sweet older brother who tries to educate his younger sister and keep in check her explosive temper.
- Covered in Mud: Poor Poppy makes her first appearance by falling with her face into a puddle of mud...and some other stuff.
- The Dark Ages: Humans and the Hobbits are among the least developed and civilized people of Middle-earth.
- Death Is Such an Odd Thing: While living in Valinor, the Elves never knew what death is, but after Morgoth destroyed their home, they fought him in the War of Wrath to put an end to him forever. Since that, the immortal Elves learned many words for death.
- Doomed Hometown:
- Galadriel narrates how Morgoth destroyed the Two Trees of Valinor and turned the city of Tirion into a wasteland. After that, the Elves had to leave Valinor for Middle-earth.
- Hordern, the place where Bronwyn was born has same fate. She discovers the town being entirely destroyed with no lead on what happened to the inhabitants.
- Drama Panes: Galadriel stop in front of a thin wall of ice and contemplates several seconds at seeing her reflexion before breaking the ice.
- Establishing Character Moment:
- Galadriel is only a young child in the prologue but is already getting into a scuffle with another bratty elf child who deliberately sinks her paper boat, pushing him to the ground and moving as if to punch him before she’s stopped by Finrod. This seems to be a common occurrence as a clearly amused Finrod asks, "Did you lose your footing again, Galadriel?".
- Elrond is introduced sitting relaxed in a tree, trying to write a speech for King Gil-galad.
- Arondir is a Silvan Elf and the first non-white elf to be introduced. His job is to watch over the people of Southlands, who hate Elves for treating them as some second class citizens.
- Evil Is Deathly Cold: The fortress of Utumno in Forodwaith is so cold that the fire from torches stops giving any heat at all. Furthermore, Galadriel is able to find the inner sanctum by following the coldest path.
- Five-Second Foreshadowing: Finrod tells a young Galadriel he will not be always there to show her the truth of the world. Several minutes later, he is shown dead at the hands of Sauron sometime after the War of Wrath.
- Fantastic Racism: The woodland Elves and Southrons don't like each other. The Southrons are tired of being blamed for their ancestors' joining sides with Morgoth, while the Elves distrust the Southrons because is in their blood to side with evil forces, and is the Elves' job to make sure they don't overstep again.
- Fantasy Counterpart Culture: The helmets worn by Elves in the Great Battle, are similar to Spartan helmets.
- Foreshadowing: An exhausted Theo complains to his mother that he hasn't slept well due to the mice scurrying under the floorboards in the middle of the night. The next episode will reveal that wasn't mice.
- Forest of Perpetual Autumn: Lindon is surrounded by a birch forest in an autumnal estate.
- Garden of Eden: Galadriel describes Valinor as an idyllic Paradise-like place to the Elves. And just like Eve and Adam, they 'fell' from Paradise and had to experience for the first time in their life, death and sorrow.
- Hobbits: The Harfoots are nomadic proto-hobbits. They are the ancestors of most Hobbits from the Shire.
- Head-in-the-Sand Management: The Elves are so weary of the war with Morgoth and Sauron that the political consensus becomes to end the hunt for Sauron and his orcs, even as Galadriel finally uncovers the trail.
- Ignored Expert: Both Elrond and Gil-Galad would rather have Galadriel sailing to Valinor despite all her warnings, mainly because by trying to find the dormant evil, she might trigger a chain of events that could have unimaginable consequences.
- Know When to Fold 'Em: The hunt for Sauron has been going on for so long that the elves in Galadriel company are physically and mentally exhausted, something that rarely happens to their species. After fighting the snow troll, they decide that it is time quit the hunt and go home. Galadriel reluctantly agrees and only goes back with them to recruit a new company of followers. However, the High King and the elven lords have also grown tired of war and have decided that it is time to dissolve the army and return the elven nation to a peaceful state. Galadriel seems to go along with this but in the end refuses to return to Valinor and continues her hunt on her own.
- Living Shadow: Morgoth is only shown as a huge shadowy silhouette.
- Meaningful Background Event: Done several times.
- We can see the snow-troll hands while Galadriel and her small army wander around the fortress.
- A warg is wandering around a garden full of berries while the Harfoots children eat.
- Medal of Dishonor: Galadriel is given a laurel crown for pretending to agree with the High King that Sauron is no longer a threat.
- The Mutiny: Galadriel's small company of Elves decide to rebel against her orders to continue the search for Sauron's whereabouts, after finally getting fed up with Galadriel's willingness to constantly risk their lives. After getting attacked and almost killed by a snow-troll, they all put down their swords in front of her to communicate their unwillingness to continue her restless quest. Several episode later, Galadriel recounts to Halbrand how deeply betrayed she felt when her company mutinied against her.
- Mystical Plague: The Southlands are affected by a mysterious black plague that sickens the vegetation and the animals.
- Odd Friendship: Elrond, an erudite Elf and Galadriel, a fiery Action Girl are long-lived friends.
- Opening Monologue: "Nothing is evil in the beginning. And there was a time when the world was so young, there had not been yet a sunrise. But even then there was light."
- Plot-Based Voice Cancellation: We don't really get to see what Findor answers to Galadriel's question about how the boat will know what light to follow.
- Properly Paranoid: The elves have been keeping a strict watch over the people of the Southlands due to their ancestors once having served Morgoth. Arondir insists that was long ago, but Theo's discovery of a broken sword emblazoned with Sauron's emblem in the cellar of one of the villagers — and that Theo himself seems drawn to it — proves that at least some of the townsfolk are still loyal to — or at least bear the taint of — the forces of darkness.
- The Quest: After the death of her brother, Galadriel and her small company embarked on a mission to hunt down Sauron for centuries.
- Rebellious Princess: Galadriel seemingly accepted Gil-Galad's offer to go in Valinor, only for her to jump in the water and return back to Middle-earth by swimming if necessary.
- Red Filter of Doom: In the aftermath of War of Wrath, Middle-earth is left in ruins, and everything is shown as a hellish red place.
- Refusing Paradise: The climax of the episode features Galadriel turning away from the equivalent of Heaven and return to Middle-earth to carry out The Promise she made to her dead brother: to find Sauron and vanquish him.
- Scaling the Summit: Galadriel and her company are trying to climb the impossible peaks of the Northern Waste.
- Signs of the End Times: There are different signs that some bad is approaching: Galadriel finding dark magic being used in the mountains of Northern Wastelands; the humans wandering around Rhovanion notice that something is wrong there, there is nothing to hunt and wolves are everywhere; Sadoc Burrows comments that travelers should not be around Southern Rhovanion so early in the year (and Nori accurately wonders if they're being driven there by trouble farther south); the nature getting sick in the Southlands; Gil-galad finds a birch leaf blackening, and the falling meteor at the end of the episode.
- Ship Tease: Arondir and Bronywn have some sexual tension going on and people in Tirharad start to gossip about them immediately.
- Solar and Lunar: The two Trees, Laurelin (the Gold Tree) and Telperion (the Silver Tree. What was left of them after Morgoth destroyed them, was later turned into the Sun and respectively, the Moon.
- Too Dumb to Live: Galadriel decides not to go through with the trip to Valinor rather dramatically by literally jumping ship at the last minute, with no apparent plan for crossing back across a major ocean.
- Troubled Backstory Flashback: The opening consists of Galadriel narrating her memories of her once idyllic childhood, before morphing to the original Dark Lord Morgoth beginning the war for Middle-earth and ending with the death of her brother at the hands of Sauron.
- Wandering Culture: Marigold has to explain her daughter why their people are not worried about the rest of the world. They move from place to place according to the seasons, without ever deviating from their established path.
- We Have Become Complacent: Galadriel believes the Elves became content and blind to a possible return of Sauron.
- White Is Pure: The elvish children shown in Valinor all wear white, signifying this was a time of innocence and happiness for Elves until Morgoth destroyed Laurelin and Telperion.
