#someone who works on the mandalorian watched LOTR while writing this episode and either consciously or subconsciously

[mozart-the-meerkitten]

OKAY SO I have been having THOUGHTS about how similar the Mines of Mandalore and the Mines of Moria scenes are. And I mean beyond how satisfyingly alliterative they are. Spoilers, obviously.

So, I was watching eps. 1-2 and first I was just really amused by the surface similarities of the two mines. The whole, “This is no mine, it’s a tomb”, “behold the great dwarf city of Dwarrowdelf”, the fact that the door Din goes through trying to find the living waters looks EXACTLY like the doorways at the fork in Moria where Gandalf tells everyone “when in doubt, always follow your nose” (my brief thought before Din wandered in there was that he should have sniffed the air first and considering the DANGER he found I think that was legit).

And then I start actually thinking about this and losing my goshdarned mind over it.

You have Din who’s never been there before and Bo Katan who has and ends up guiding him through these ruins of ancient halls destroyed and desecrated not so long ago even though the wreckage looks ancient. How both in LOTR and the Mandalorian there are these ruins that show you the world used to be so much bigger and more beautiful, but so much has been lost. The contrast of Bo Katan being certain of what they won’t find and Gandalf being certain of what they will find. The goblins and the glowing-eyed cavemen. The creature that lives in the dark and will kill you if it catches you (Gollum and General Grievous’ weird cousin). Grogu and Frodo have shirts made of the strongest metal known to anyone given to them by their adopted father figures. The fact that these were mines for mithril and beskar, the strongest metals in their universes.

And then. AND THEN. The piece de resistance. The beautiful contrast between the Balrog and the Mythosaur. They’re both ancient beings that have been hidden away in the dark for thousands of years, fallen from the splendor they once had. And one is dark and evil and bathed in FIRE and the other is (presumably) good and noble and hidden in WATER. Like ?!?! were they trying to make this comparison?!? because it’s fantastic and I love it and I need more of it.

AND the whole reason Din and Bo Katan are in the Mines in the first place is so Din can have his honor renewed by bathing in the waters (and Bo Katan comes along for the ride xD) and he FALLS into the depths but he IS renewed. In Moria Gandalf FALLS when he fights the balrog but when he defeats it he is renewed.

Oh and let’s not forget the FALLEN ROYALTY from an ancient line with a MAGIC SWORD. Like, Bo Katan might not permanently get the darksaber back till later in the season but she does reclaim and wield it again in the Mines. And in the book (movies were weird about this) Aragorn already has Anduril after they leave Rivendell so he has it in Moria.

So yeah, anyway, there are just SO MANY parallels here between the Mines of Mandalore and the Mines of Moria and I am LOVING it this was so fun to think about the past few days.