The land of Mordor is where the shadows lie, and this article is where major spoilers lie. Read no further if you haven’t watched the Season 3 premiere episodes of “The Rings of Power.”
“The Rings of Power” is a tragedy. As far as prequels go, this one is not as full of doom and gloom as “Andor” — a show where audiences knew the main character was destined to die tragically — but it is still a show all about the rise of an evil that almost conquered Middle-earth. Indeed, though there are some surprising main characters in Season 3, the true star of “Rings of Power” is the Dark Lord Sauron (Charlie Vickers), who spends each season lying and manipulating his way to ruining everyone else’s day.
This was especially prominent than in Season 2, which was all about Sauron making the elves believe he was an envoy of the Valar so that they’d help him make the titular Rings of Power. In particular, Sauron spent the entire season gaslighting the show’s best and most tragic character, Celebrimbor (Charles Edwards). Episode after episode, Sauron used Celebrimbor’s vanity and pride to his advantage, scheming and lying into making Celebrimbor his friend and ally, before stabbing him in the chest with a pike.
This leads to “Rings of Power” Season 3 featuring the most gruesome TV scene of 2026. When Sauron returns to his little office in Barad-dûr after failing to make the One Ring yet again, the Dark Lord gets a visit from the ghost of Celebrimbor, who mocks Sauron’s failures at trying to replicate the dead elven smith’s work.
And right there, in front of Sauron, is the rotting body of Celebrimbor, hanging on a wall like a trophy.
Enter Skelebrimbor
What makes this horrifying is not only that Sauron still keeps the dead body of Celebrimbor around, but the fact that it’s a rotting mess with arrows sticking out of the torso. Making matters worse, Skelebrimbor is hung from a wall like a war banner
This, of course, is a reference to the actual books. As J.R.R. Tolkien himself wrote, Celebrimbor’s dead body was “hung upon a pole, shot through with Orc-arrows” and turned upon Elrond’s forces like a banner for Sauron’s army. It’s why fans affectionately refer to this act as “Celebrimbanner.” It is arguably one of the cruelest things the Dark Lord ever did — which is saying something considering the untold number of people that died because of him.
Seeing the body of Celebrimbor hanging on a wall — the flesh rotting away, an expression of fear and shock on the skeleton — is horrifying, and easily the most gruesome piece of imagery in the entire “Lord of the Rings” franchise. There is no reason why Sauron needs to have kept the body of Celebrimbor, other than to assert his cruelty.
And yet, it leads to a rather hilarious scene of the ghost of Celebrimbor appearing only to taunt Sauron, ragebaiting the Dark Lord and mocking his inability to craft anything as majestic as the great smith Celebrimbor. He even tells Sauron that his orcs now pity him because of how pathetic his jewelry crafting skills are. It’s a testament to Charlie Vickers for the subtle ways in which you can tell the insults are actually getting at Sauron. Meanwhile Charles Edwards reminds us why he is one of the best pieces of casting in this show, with this short but impactful scene in a third season that otherwise struggles to live up to hype.