‘Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power’ — The Emotional Reason Durin Was so Upset With Elrond
The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power features a bromance between the elf Elrond (Robert Aramayo) and the dwarf Durin (Owain Arthur). They had a lot of drama to work out first, though. Arthur said Durin’s reservations may not have been as simple as he let on.
Arthur was a guest on Vanity Fair’s Little Gold Men podcast on Sept. 6. Discussing Durin’s acrimonious reunion with Elrond early in the series, Arthur revealed how Durin really felt. New episodes of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power premiere Fridays on Prime Video.
Durin hadn’t seen Elron in a long time before ‘The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power’ began
Elrond goes to visit Durin to ask for the dwarves’ help. To Durin, this was a surprise visit.
“What’s so interesting about Lord of the Rings, about the world that Tolkien has written, is that the elves are immortal,” Arthur said on Little Gold Men. “They live for many, many years, thousands of years. So when an elf doesn’t pop over to see a dwarf after 20 years, that offends the dwarf. That’s a long time to not call but for an elf, it’s a weekend. So there’s a misunderstanding there.”
Durin the dwarf had a very human reason for his anger at Elrond
Arthur said it wasn’t just the social slight that offended Durin. Durin was legitimately hurt by Elrond. If you watch The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, that’s evident in Arthur’s performance.
“What was interesting is that for Durin, he was hurt and his reaction is anger,” Arthur said. “But actually his heart was broken by his friend hadn’t called over. I find that quite a nice soft side of a dwarf.”
There are other reasons for Durin to be skeptical of Elrond though.
“Inevitably, because of a dwarf’s nature of mistrust, particularly with Elrond is half elven, so there’s slight animosity there,” Arthur said. “It so happens Khazad-dum that I’m in is thriving at the moment. Therefore dwarves get paranoid like okay, they want something. Because we’re doing well, they want something. There’s that doubt in there as well.”
‘The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power’ explores the human side of dwarves
Dwarves existed in The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. They appeared as warriors. The Rings of Power gave viewers a chance to see dwarves as more human than they might have imagined.
“Even though we’re dwarves, we’re different beings, there is a human side to them, a very domestic side to them particularly in our series,” Arthur said. “We see Durin married to Disa who’s played by the lovely Sophia Nomvete. He has children and his father is the king played by the wonderful Peter Mullen. So we get to see the pull of the domesticity in the dwarves’ life and the responsibilities of a future king. It’s not just going down the mine, knocking some rock and having a pint. There’s more to it than that, although I think he’ll be good at all of them.”
