Absolutely obsessed with that exchange between Adar and Arondir in ep. 6 when the orcs break into the ākeep.ā Even besides the sheer BDE of Arondirās āI will consider itā (what an icon), I canāt stop thinking about the fact that by all evidence he was fully going to let Adar kill everyone in that room, Bronwyn included, rather than give up the sword hilt. What a fascinating character beat! I mean, we see characters presented with that same choice all the time, in all kinds of stories: give the bad guy what he wants, or someone you love dies. And every. Single. Goddamn. Time. The hero picks the person they love. It drives me crazy! Because itās always presented like that was the right thing to do, but itās not! Itās the trolley problem, right? Do you save one person or ten? Of course you should save ten, even if the one person is the love of your life, because the grief you would feel for their loss doesnāt outweigh the moral imperative to save as many people as you possibly can. But thatās never what the hero does, and someone always suffers for it. But thatās not what happens here:Ā Adar is about to have Bronwyn killed and Arondir doesnāt stop him. He chooses Middle Earth over the woman he loves (and those are the stakes weāre talking about here: we just saw the creation of Mordor for fucks sake. Obviously weāre all glad that Bronwyn survived, but I donāt think anyone would argue that the world wouldnāt be better off if Mount Doom never erupted). I love that that was Arondirās choice, because itās so heartbreakingly pragmatic and almost shockingly unselfish. If Arondir had been the only one who knew where that sword hilt was, Bronwyn would be dead and Adarās plans would have failed because he was expecting the typical heroās choice of love over everything and everyone else. It never even occurred to him that Arondir might save the world at the expense of someone he loved, but thatās what Arondir would have done. And I fucking love that.Ā