The fourth episode of ‘The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power’ is one focused on basically clue us into the futures of some of the major civilizations of Middle Earth. One, the harbinger of the great wave that will engulf Númenor, is obvious. The other, not so much… except for those who know Tolkien’s lore.
And it is that during the episode we discover that what so jealously are the dwarves of Khazad-dûm guarding (or the Mines of Moria) and, more specifically, Prince Durin, is a shiny, gray prodigious metal called, in Sindarin, mithril. In Durin’s words:
«A new ore. Lighter than silk and harder than iron. As a weapon, it would surpass our best blades. As currency, it could be worth more than gold. (…) This could be the beginning of a new era for our people. Strength, prosperity…»
A metal that, without having an exact correspondence, the closest thing we have in our world is palladium or titanium. The bad? that it is dangerous to extract it. Something forbidden by the king himself. Now, we would have to see if this is all that the clan hides, since by continuing to not fully trust Elrond, we can assume that we know only part of the things.
It is also a vital discovery for the plot of the series, since we know that this metal would be Nenya, one of the three rings of power forged by Celebrimbor for the elves and possessed by Galadriel. Now we will have to see how this metal reaches his hands, although everything indicates that Elrond has a lot to do with it.
The awakening of the balrog
On the other hand, Tolkien’s writings tell us that the dwarf miners managed to take advantage of this metal, propitiating an era of splendor for the dwarves… but also their destruction.
Of course, I don’t think we’ll see this part (unless they decide to be more “anachronistic”) in the series, because she is already well into her old age (and thus after Sauron’s defeat and the events of ‘The Rings of Power’).
It is said that the scarcity of the metal led the dwarves to be too greedy and Digging where they shouldn’t have woken a sleeping Balrog deep in the mines. This balrog is known as the Durin’s Scourge, but not by Durin III or IV, but by VI. After this awakening and the destruction it brought, the surviving dwarves fled from Khazâd-dum and slammed the gates of Moria shut.
Which is not to say that we won’t have a Balrog in the series. In fact, at least one is supposed to come out judging by the teasers. After the defeat of Morgoth at the end of the first Age, they took refuge in the depths of Middle-earth and we assume that they are “sleeping”. Will Moria wake up or are we in another scenario? That is what Prime Video’s fiction must solve.