 | |
| Moriondor | |
| Adar | |
|---|---|
| Biographical Information | |
| Other names | Father |
| Titles | Father Lord-father Lord of the Southlands Lord of Mordor Lord-Father of the Uruks (by Waldreg) Orc (by Galadriel) Uruk (by Galadriel) Father of the Orcs (by Elrond) |
| Position | Commander |
| Location | Beleriand, Dúrnost, Trenches, Tirharad, and Watchtower of Ostirith |
| Affiliation | Orcs of the Southlands/Mordor formerly: Morgoth and later Sauron |
| Language | Black Speech Quenya Westron |
| Birth | Y.T. 1080 Possibly Cuiviénen |
| Rule | Late Second Age |
| Death | Late Second Age (aged possibly over 5500 years) Eregion |
| Notable for | Aspiring to become a God |
| Physical Description | |
| Gender | Male |
| Height | 5'11" 5'10" |
| Hair colour | Black |
| Eye colour | Blue |
| Clothing | Gauntlets Grey breastplate |
| Weaponry | Dagger, sword, Orc Sigil Hilt |
| Gallery | Images of Adar |
Have you forgotten your Rúmil? Never make war in anger.
Adar was an Uruk and former Elf, possibly of Moriondor origin. Adar was invented by Amazon Studios for The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, where he was portrayed by Joseph Mawle before being recast as Samuel Hazeldine for the second season.
History
Beginnings
When the Elves first awoke at the beginning of the First Age, Adar was one of many who were taken by Morgoth. He was led up to a nameless peak, tortured and twisted and became one of the first Orcs, a new and ruinous form of life. As such, those that followed him revered him as a God and, in turn, he called them his "children".
At one point during or prior to the War of the Great Jewels, Adar walked alongside the mouth of a river which had banks covered by miles of sage blossoms. Whether Adar would fight in the war, we can only guess. However, it is known that he had command over some legion of orcs during the First Age, and likely assisted his masters in the battles to come. After the First Age and the downfall of Morgoth, Adar was one of many who answered the call of Sauron from the fortress of Dúrnost within Forodwaith. Initially an adherent of his second master's purposes to heal Middle-earth, he ultimately became disillusioned with the Dark Lord, noting the selfish sacrificing of his "children" to create a power over flesh.
Adar eventually rebelled against Sauron when the Dark Lord attempted to have the Orcs swear fealty to him. He briefly feigned loyalty and, as he moved to set the Iron Crown of Morgoth on the kneeling Sauron's head, he instead inverted the crown and stabbed Sauron with its sharp points. The surrounding Orcs then attacked Sauron, slaying his bodily form and causing his spirit to flee the Northern Waste.
The Hunt for the Hilt
Sometime after Sauron's bodily form was destroyed, Adar and his Orcs would leave Dúrnost and make their way south. They arrive in the Southlands sometime in the late Second Age, and Adar became the leader of Orc legions operating within the area and sought the Orc Sigil Hilt, as it held the key to unleashing Orodruin. His followers soon began to dig tunnels stretching from their trenches to Hordern and Tirharad. Hordern was destroyed by the Orcs and the Silvan Elves stationed at the Watchtower of Ostirith were later captured, including Arondir, Médhor, and Watchwarden Revion.
The Elves were then put to work in the camp, but later initiated a failed revolt, which resulted in the Orc-chief Magrot being mortally wounded. Upon being made aware of the situation by Lurka, Adar entered the main area of the camp where Magrot laid. The Orcs all bowed to Adar as he passed each of them. When he reached Magrot, Adar knelt by him, soothing his pain before putting him out of his misery with a dagger, ending his life.
While the other Orcs took Magrot's body away, Adar questioned Arondir, the lone survivor of the revolt, learning that he was born in Beleriand. After evading Arondir's questions, Adar sends him to bear his embassy to the Southlanders taking refuge in Ostirith: either they swear fealty to him and relinquish their claim on the Southlands or they will perish.
A short while later, as Adar observed a caged Warg devouring an arm, Grugzûk informed him that the Orc Sigil Hilt was with the young Southlander Theo in Ostirith. Later, Adar was made aware by Grugzûk that the tunnel to Orodruin was finally complete and that the legions were ready. Adar orders Grugzûk to expose his arm beneath the Sun. As Grugzûk's arm burns, Adar asked him what it felt like and Grugzûk tells him it is like fire. To this, Adar claims that he wished that he could feel the sun's warmth as he can, before reminiscing how he would miss it when the night comes. Afterwards, He ordered Grugzûk to summon and prepare the legions.
The Siege of Ostirith
_-_Adar_in_the_sunlight.jpg)
After making a temporary encampment in Tirharad, a group of Southlanders, led by Waldreg, approached him and sought to swear fealty in order to keep their lives. Upon being mistaken by Waldreg for Sauron, Adar furiously flung him to the ground, before he forced Waldreg to kill Rowan with a dagger to prove his loyalty. Adar then accepted the allegiance of the other Southlanders as well.
After leading his followers to the Watchtower of Ostirith, Adar walked into a trap set by Arondir, who caused the tower to collapse. Many of Adar's followers, including Bazur, are killed. At the arrival of nightfall, Adar launched an attack on Tirharad, where the Southlanders have returned to. As the price for admission into his ranks, the Lord-father forced the Men in his employ to fight for him alongside an advance party of Orcs against their own kin at the battle in Tirharad, resulting in the morale of the resisting villagers to be broken.
During the second assault, Adar's legions easily overran Tirharad and pinned the Southlanders in the tavern. In an attempt to force Arondir to reveal the Orc Sigil Hilt, Adar has his Orcs executed as many Men as necessary until the Hilt was revealed. It is only when the wounded Bronwyn was threatened that the location of the Hilt was revealed by Theo.
The Arrival of the Númenóreans
Just as Adar passed the Hilt to Waldreg, his followers were ambushed by an army of Númenóreans led by Captain Elendil and the Queen Regent Míriel. Upon trying to flee on a brown horse, Adar was pursued by Galadriel and ambushed by Halbrand. Not desiring to be captured, Adar tried to provoke Halbrand into killing him, but was thwarted by Galadriel, who interrogated him back at Tirharad. When Galadriel demanded to know if he was one of the Moriondor, Adar refused to confirm her assumption.
However, when Galadriel threatened to move the other captives into the sunlight, Adar admitted his old subservience to Sauron, whom he claimed to have rebelled against and slain. Adar also revealed his goal: to morph the Southlands into a place where his "children" could thrive, no longer slaves shackled to Morgoth or his successor, Sauron. However, Galadriel refused to believe him, laying bare her hatred of Orcs and promising that she would make sure that he is the last of his kind when she kills him. Adar counters her threat by suggesting that her search for Morgoth's successor should have stopped with a mirror of herself. At this, Galadriel nearly sliced Adar's throat, only to be stopped when Halbrand brought her to her senses.
The Birth of Mordor
Unknown to Galadriel and her company, Waldreg was still at large with the Hilt per Adar's instructions and used it to release the lake beyond Ostirith. As the flood traveled through the tunnels that the Orcs had previously made, Adar pressed his ear to the floor, listening to the sound. After Orodruin was awoken by the flood, Adar somehow escaped his confinement though unknown means. Later, as the Orcs got used to not needing their sun-cloaks, Adar was proclaimed the Lord of the Southlands by his followers. Upon hearing the name, he rejected it as being the name of a place that no longer existed. As such, he changed the name to Mordor.
Adar began to enslave the remaining Southlanders, executing anyone who refused to swear fealty to him. Halbrand, having left Eregion after being revealed by Galadriel to be Sauron, surrendered himself to Adar. Sauron (in the guise of Halbrand) made attempts at negotiating for his release. Halbrand is temporarly imprisoned as Adar confronts him about a mysterious sorcerer and also reveals him to be one of the Moriondor. Halbrand is later set free after giving Adar false information about his own whereabouts.
After hearing that Sauron had appeared in Eregion, Adar led his army out of Mordor to besiege the city. After his forces arrived in the outskirts of Eregion, his army intercepted and captured Galadriel, who had joined a party of scouts to investigate what was happening there. Adar imprisoned Galadriel, but later had her join him for a candlelit dinner.
Adar spoke with Galadriel and appealed to their shared hatred of Sauron. He let Galadriel in on his plan and revealed that he remained in possession of Morgoth's Iron Crown. He then proposed that, with the help Galadriel's ring, Nenya, they would be able to defeat Sauron once more. Galadriel did not wish to ally herself with Adar, and indicated that she did not have the ring, but Adar surmises its location and goes forward with his plan to besiege Ost-in-Edhil. Galadriel protested vehemently and told Adar that he was falling into Sauron's trap, and that he was only weakening Sauron's enemies for him.
The Sack of Eregion
Adar ignored Galadriel's protests and ordered his Orcs to begin attacking the city with trebuchets when the sun set. After the initial bombardment, he ordered the Orcs to launch projectiles at the mountainside above the city, which caused a rock-slide that dammed the flow of river water around the city and allowed the preparation of a ground assault. As Adar began to stage his assault, Elrond and Gil-galad arrived with a contingent of cavalry, who charged his forces before the Orcs revealed that they were holding Galadriel hostage. The Elf forces immediately stopped their charge, after which Elrond dismounted and entered Adar's tent to attempt to negotiate Galadriel's release.
Adar laid out his terms and demanded Nenya in exchange for Galadriel's release. Elrond refused, and Adar remained firm in his demands. Elrond then asked to give Galadriel a proper farewell. Adar allowed this and Elrond, to everyone's surprise, kissed Galadriel. However, this kiss was not romantic in nature and merely served as a distraction while he passed her a brooch so that she could use its needle to pick the lock of her cuffs.
Adar's ground attack then began, and many were slain on the riverbed surrounding the city. To turn the tide of battle, Adar ordered Troll Damrod to move ahead and operate a siege weapon that was up against the city's wall. Elrond engaged in a battle with the Troll and managed to succeed in killing him, but not before Damrod was able to breach the wall.
Adar then moved forces toward the city and quickly routed the Elven forces. As he pressed his way into the city, he engaged in single combat with Arondir and wounded Arondir with his sword. Having secured a victory, Adar approached Elrond and attained Nenya from him.
The Betrayal
Galadriel was later brought to Adar and, to her surprise, he no longer bore his characteristic scarred and sallow appearance. Instead, due to Nenya's healing powers, he appears as the Elf he had once been. The healing caused a change of heart in Adar and, forgiving Galadriel for her many years of Orc slaying, offered her Nenya freely. He then promised that after the defeat of Sauron he would withdraw his armies to Mordor and never assail the Free Peoples of Middle-earth. Galadriel took the ring and, as she did so, Adar's marred appearance returned.
The seemingly gravely injured Orc Glûg then arrived with other Orcs. When Adar approached him to examine his injuries, Glûg stabbed him. The surrounding Orcs joined in the assault, stabbing Adar repeatedly as he laid helpless on the ground. While this attack occurred, Sauron watched smugly as Galadriel stood by, frozen in terror. Adar reached his hand lovingly toward his treacherous children as they ended his life and, as his hand dropped to the ground, Glûg requested orders from his new Dark Lord, Sauron.
Characteristics
As one of the Moriondor, he still bore traces of his Elvish origin—both in body and in mind—that later Orcs no longer possessed. He retained a capacity for compassion and mercy, evident in the affection he showed toward his “children.” Yet he remained blind to the full brutality and ruthlessness of Orcish nature. Though he called himself an “Uruk,” part of him still yearned for his past; before the battle at Tirharad, he planted Alfirin seeds—symbols of “new life in defiance of death”—in keeping with Elven tradition.
Adar believed that he and the other Orcs were little more than “nameless slaves” of Sauron, but he also held that they could become something greater. In his view, they were a people deserving of a homeland, just as other races had one—even the Southlanders who had once served Morgoth. However, despite his revulsion toward the cruelty inflicted on his “children” by their former masters, Adar himself often mirrored that same brutality. He ordered the execution of defiant Men and branded those who submitted with his mark, though he later released them as part of a false bargain with the so-called “king of the Southlands.”
His long service under Morgoth and Sauron also shaped his methods in war. His strategies could be merciless: he sacrificed many Southlanders as a diversion, despite having promised them clemency upon submission. (It is worth noting that their leader, Waldreg, was a devoted follower of Sauron, which may have lessened Adar’s willingness to spare them.) He did not hesitate to use others as leverage—slaughtering captives before Arondir to force the surrender of the Orc sigil hilt, and presenting Galadriel as a hostage during the Siege of Eregion, openly threatening her life if his terms were rejected.
During the Sack of Eregion, Adar’s character shifted markedly. Though he had once shown genuine care for the Orcs, he now pursued strategies that resulted in heavy losses and showed little outward concern for the cost. Still, he mourned his fallen “children” and seemed convinced that such sacrifices were necessary to defeat Sauron, who would otherwise enslave them again.
By the end of the siege, after being healed by Nenya and restored to his original Elven form, Adar underwent another profound change. He returned the ring to Galadriel and pledged that, once Sauron was defeated, he and his forces would withdraw to Mordor and abandon war altogether. This moment is enigmatic: Adar relinquishes a powerful artifact he seemingly needs, while Galadriel does not abandon her own plans—nor those of the High King—to invade Mordor and destroy the Orcs. Her lack of response may reflect not only resolve but also shock and fear at the events unfolding.
Even in betrayal, Adar’s attachment endured. When he was stabbed by his lieutenant Glûg and other Orcs who defected to Sauron, he showed no anger. Instead, he reached out to them with tenderness, still regarding them as his “children.”
Etymology
adar is the Sindarin word for "father".[1]
_-_Adar_poster.jpg)
Notes
- The first corruption of Elves by Morgoth occurred around YT 1080, calculated to be slightly over 4000 solar years before the Sun and Moon first arose. Adding the 590 years from then to the end of the First Age and at least 1000 years of the Second Age gives a figure somewhere above 5500.