Posts»Shadow of Mordor…
shadow

Shadow of Mordor Reveal

 

Ever since it was announced that Talion would be part wraith questions swirled around who or what the wraith actually was. And with the latest Shadow of Mordor reveal, the identity of the wraith has been shown and it’sย Celebrimbor, an elvish prince who played an important role in Sauron’s original scheme to create the One Ring. It’s been clear from the beginning that Talion’s quest for revenge was fueled by the murder of his wife and son, and the bonding with the wraith was in part due to its own desire to seek revenge. So the revelation that the wraith is Celebrimbor has me very excited because the story will not only explore one of the most important events in the history of Middle-Earth but in doing so opens the door to even more Tolkien lore in future games that haven’t been touched on in games or movies such as other beings or Sauron’s origins. As the trailer shows, Celebrimbor was responsible for the creation of the rings of power however he and others were deceived by Sauron, who went by the name Annatar and claimed to be a delegate of the Valar, in creating them. This led to one of the great wars and Celebrimbor would be captured and tortured before meeting his end. It was stated last year that Tolkien scholars were heavily involved in constructing the story for the game, and now knowing this I’m very interested in how things will play out. The good news is the game has been moved up so it’ll now be released on September 30th. Only 2 months to go so for now check out the trailer.

4 comments

  1. fantasywind - July 29, 2014 9:57 AM

    Well well, what are you little soul? The greatest elven smith HA! Speculations were true at least once hehe. Interesting, really (though maybe a bit too pompous in the trailer haha ๐Ÿ™‚ ๐Ÿ˜‰ ) Sauron in his fair form too as Annatar (nice though I would say he should be bigger, grander and more beautiful looking after all Ainur are cheating, their looks are only limited by their imagination they can choose any form they wish, hahah ๐Ÿ™‚ but seriously it’s very fascinating part of lore (I personally like the version where Celebrimbor was in unrequitted love with Galadriel though it’s from Unfinished Tales so they can’t use it ๐Ÿ™‚ ) Sauron was also the author of the idea of the crafting the Rings of Power and was co-worker in this regard in crafting the Seven, the Nine and there were even more lesser rings ,,mere essays in craft” also Sauron taught much other knowledge and skill the smiths of Eregion making them even better in their craft, devising many things but he ,,secretly guided their labour” ๐Ÿ™‚ yes this makes things about this game even more unique as nobody really thought about that in any game incarnation of Middle Earth (still it’s sad that they try to blend movies in and feel the need of twisting the lore a bit, as it appears from the official wiki discussions and sources from developpers, they are changing timeline and all that creative licence, Tolkien stories are self-sufficient, though maybe it’s a small price to pay to have a truly good lotr related game).

    Reply
    • Kareem Ali - July 30, 2014 1:33 AM

      I think those things might be covered in this game and that factors into Celebrimbor’s anger as a wraith. I do love that they’re introducing this aspect of the lore into mainstream because it opens the door for so much of the rest history to be covered

      Reply
      • fantasywind - July 30, 2014 5:14 AM

        I only hope that they don’t go the route of openly facing Sauron himself in the end, it would diminish the might of terror of this villain, he would be downplayed if they allow us to defeat him somehow just that or cripple so he cannot leave the tower if the hints given by developpers are true (Sauron’s power at this point is growing and he starts to rebuild his empire from Second Age, gathering all dark creatures to him and conquering and enslaving many peoples in the East and South).

        Sure Celebrimbor is powerful, great elf-lord of the royal lineage, grandson of Feanor (the mightiest of his all fricking race) but he is not as mighty as his grandpa and even wraithified he wouldn’t have it easy, elvish spirits are stronger than that of mortals yet they are shadow of the power wielded by Sauron’s kind, some of the elves can only come close, besides this character faced the Dark Lord already, it ended badly (though again Unfinished Tales where it is described in greater detail). How they’re going to explore those events, probably some things will be different for the purpose of the game, well and because of the lack of rights to UT, Elrond speaks of the fall of Eregion in Lotr there are some informations in appendices but the UT account is the most interesting one.

        There is whole story of the conflict there. Celebrimbor being desperate openly faced Sauron himself, but was grappled and taken captive to be later tortured for information and put to death, and his body pierced with arrows was used as a…banner for the forces of Sauron when he started to totally waste Eriador conquering and destroying everything at their path, until they were stalemated by forces of Gil-Galad from kingdom of Lindon and the expeditionary fleet of Numenoreans decimated Sauron’s armies so he withdrew and proceeded to conquer all the other lands, creating an ever growing empire he ruled as god-king (as Sauron’s powers thanks to the Ring were enhanced and waxing to enormous levels).

        Nonetheless it’s a nice effort from their part, yet I can’t help but feel that their claims of being true to lore will be in many regards untrue, either due to creative license or simply because there’s not much possibility to be so without access to all Tolkien writings, add the movie material in and we have strange mix. Well i’m not complaining..all right maybe a little, ๐Ÿ™‚ my inner Tolkien fan spirit does so sometimes hehehe.

        Reply
        • Kareem Ali - July 31, 2014 6:58 AM

          I don’t know how they’ll treat a battle with Sauron in this game but I don’t think they’ll diminish him by allowing him to be defeated in a simple way even with Talion and Celebrimbor’s combined might. Considering they went so far to have Celebrimbor and his actual history in a game I don’t think they would diminish Sauron. It appears they will have that torture in the game and would have to explain the reason he was being tortured by Sauron. I was thinking Talion might even die in battle against Sauron but with a property like this I don’t know if they would be so bold to kill the main character lol. Obviously I’m hoping for a lot more games set in the Tolkien world like this so unless they plan on having a new main character in every entry I’m not sure how things will play out. After everything I’ve seen for this game I have the utmost confidence in them regarding the story, and I can’t wait to actually play it. Glad to know you’re excited about this game too

          Reply

Leave a Reply to fantasywind Cancel reply

%d bloggers like this: