Throughout the second season of Prime Video’s The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, one of the major conflicts was the disagreement between Elrond, Galadriel, and High King Gil-galad regarding what to do with the Three Rings that Celebrimbor forged. At the start of the first episode, “Elven Kings Under the Sky,” Elrond has the Three Rings, and he wants to destroy them since he believes that they are part of Sauron’s grand plan to conquer Middle-earth. Gil-galad ordered Elrond to hand them over, but he refused, so Gil-galad commanded his guards to take them by force. Seeing no other options, Elrond jumped off a nearby cliff into the water below.

Elrond never did anything like this in J. R. R. Tolkien’s writings, but his leap of faith echoed an event involving his mother, Elwing the White. In the section “Of the Voyage of Eärendil and the War of Wrath” from The Silmarillion, the Sons of Fëanor attacked the settlement in which Elwing and her sons, Elrond and Elros, lived. The Sons of Fëanor were searching for a magic gem known as a Silmaril, which was contained within Elwing’s necklace, Nauglamír. To keep it from falling into the hands of the Sons of Fëanor, she “cast herself into the sea.” What happened after these dangerous jumps differed dramatically.

Elrond and Elwing Survived Certain Doom

No one — including the audience — saw what happened to Elrond after he made the jump in The Rings of Power. The Elves “scoured everywhere water meets rock,” but they could not find him or the Three Rings. Some feared that he was dead, but Galadriel was certain that he could survive such a fall. She deduced, “Elrond would seek out someone he can trust. Someone older, wiser, whose voice would command respect.” Her guess was entirely accurate. Elrond had swum to shore, somehow avoiding the Elves who were searching for him, and sought out Círdan the Shipwright for help destroying the Three Rings. Ultimately, this was all for nothing, as Círdan later chose not to destroy the Three Rings and instead brought them back to Gil-galad.

The scene in which Elrond jumped off the cliff was a real stunt performed by Elrond actor Robert Aramayo; he stated that he dropped 30 feet.

Elwing’s fate was more spectacular. She expected the fall to be fatal, and it would have been if not for divine intervention. Ulmo, the Vala of water, “bore up Elwing out of the waves, and he gave her the likeness of a great white bird” so that she could fly to safety. She sought out her husband, Eärendil, who was on an overseas voyage at the time. When she reached his ship, she returned to her original form. This was a monumental moment in Elrond’s life; for the rest of his time in Middle-earth, he never saw his parents again. Elwing and Eärendil sailed to Valinor, and Elrond was kidnapped by the Sons of Fëanor. In The Rings of Power, perhaps the knowledge that the Valar had kept his mother safe gave Elrond faith that he would survive such a dangerous stunt.

Elrond’s Stunt Was Not the Only Nod to Elwing

There was a more direct reference to this story earlier in the series. In Númenor, there was a giant statue of Eärendil. He was an important figure to the Númenóreans since he was the father of Elros, who was the first King of Númenor. On Eärendil’s right arm was a bird with its wings outstretched, which was likely a reference to Elwing. The first season of The Rings of Power only had the rights to adapt The Lord of the Rings novel, and though the full story of Elwing only appeared in The Silmarillion, Tolkien did mention her in The Lord of the Rings. In the chapter “Many Meetings” from The Fellowship of the Ring, Bilbo recited a poem about Eärendil, which included the line “There flying Elwing came to him.”

Before the publication of The Silmarillion, most readers assumed either that this line from the poem was a metaphor or that Elwing was somehow able to fly without becoming a bird. Much artwork based solely on The Lord of the Rings depicts her as a humanoid with white wings, like an angel. Examples such as the similarity between Elrond’s cliff jump in The Rings of Power and his mother’s in The Silmarillion are the best kind of reference. For those who are familiar with Tolkien’s lore, they deepen the worldbuilding and connect the story of the series to the wider legendarium, but those who are not familiar with Tolkien’s lore do not miss out on anything, as these scenes function regardless of any references.