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Major spoilers for The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power season 2, episode 7 follow.

The Elvish storylines from The Lord of the Rings: Rings of Power season 2 have come to a head with episode 7, the penultimate in this chapter of Prime Video's take on J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-Earth. It's all going down in and around the realm of Eregion, the land ruled by ringsmith Celebrimbor and the place Sauron has infiltrated under his guise of Annatar. And though the Battle of Eregion should not have been a surprise to Tolkien readers, the way Prime handled it may have been.

Yes, The Rings of Power goes pretty far off-script in its depiction of the tragic Fall of Eregion as this season winds down. To help you understand how, we're going to go over how it happens in J.R.R. Tolkien's writings and what the biggest departures from the source are. But be warned - we're not only going to be spoiling The Rings of Power season 2, episode 7, but probably some of the season's finale, and perhaps even a bit of season 3, if it happens.

As long as you're alright with that, read on.

What was Sauron's sack of Eregion in The Lord of the Rings?

The doom of Eregion is described in pieces in Tolkien's Lord of the Rings: Appendix B, The Silmarillion, and Unfinished Tales, respectively. It begins with the forging of the Rings of Power (so that's why the show is called that!), a joint project between its ruler Celebrimbor and the seemingly-angelic Annatar, who is really Sauron in disguise. After their completion, Sauron crafts his master Ring, a plan which the Elves uncover, revealing the true Lord of the Rings in all his evil.

The Elves quickly hide their own three Rings of Power, which Sauron desires because they are free of his influence. In response, Sauron leads a host of Orcs toward the Elven city, taking it by the sheer force of his numbers. High King Gil-Galad sends Elrond and an army of Elves to aid Eregion, but they are too late - Elrond arrives to find the city in ruins, and the dead body of Celebrimbor hoisted upon a pike, cruelly used as Sauron's battle flag. Elrond and the surviving Elves of Eregion flee, their home lost.

What happened to the Elves of Eregion in The Rings of Power?

Perhaps the biggest difference between Tolkien's take on the Sack of Eregion and The Rings of Power's presentation is that it's not Sauron at the head of the attacking Orcish army at all. It's Adar, the so-called "father of Orcs" and a character who was created for the series. Under Adar's command, the Orcs aren't heading to Eregion to serve Sauron, but to kill him, as Adar has deemed him an enemy to their kind and has tracked him to the Elven city.

After that detail, most of the differences are issues of timing. For example, the One Ring hasn't been created yet (that we know of) on the show, and the Three Rings for the Elven Kings are already scattered around Middle-Earth, before Sauron's identity was revealed. Elrond arrives at Eregion before its fate is decided, with the (ultimately in vain) hope of receiving help from his friend Durin IV's dwarves. Finally, though Galadriel was at Eregion in the text, she was joined by her husband Celeborn, a character the show seems to have killed before we even met him. 

However, we should point out that the show seems to be setting up a return to the source material in Adar's and Sauron's relationship with the Orcs. At the beginning of this second season, we saw Adar defeat Sauron and claim the mantle of Orcish leader. But as the Orcs die in droves attacking Eregion, Adar's leadership is being called into question, and it's very possible that they ditch him for Sauron, bringing the season full-circle. Whatever happens, we're betting we see the fall of Eregion in full during the finale, along with the death of Celebrimbor.

What happens after Eregion gets destroyed in The Lord of the Rings?

To not end on such a bummer, we do want to talk about what happens after the Fall of Eregion in Tolkien's writing, especially since it leads to a very important location in the events of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Remember when we said earlier that Elrond and the surviving citizens of Eregion flee? Well, that's true, but they're not scattered into the wilderness. Rather, they join forces to found one of the last refuges of the Elves in the Third Age - the realm the Elves call Imladris, and that we may know as Rivendell.

You'll of course remember that Rivendell is where the Council of Elrond happened - in the movies, it's the home to Boromir's much-memed "One does not simply walk into Mordor" line. It's also visited a few years earlier by Thorin and his company in The Hobbit, and it is Aragorn's home for much of his young adulthood. So even though Eregion's fall is tragic, awful, even catastrophic for Tolkien's Elves, one great Elvish city will rise in its honor to aid the heroes of the Third Age.

What's left to be seen is if Elrond will found Rivendell once Rings of Power returns. Of course, as of this writing, there's not yet a guarantee that it will, meaning that the Fall fo Eregion might be the last thing viewers see in Rings of Power.

Here's hoping that's not the case.

Whether you're Shirefolk, Elven, Dwarven, or something else, there's a good reason to love Lord of the Rings. We do! With that in mind, we have a dragon's horde of goodies for you from a Lord of the Rings reading guide, a Lord of the Rings watch guide, details on the upcoming animated film Lord of the Rings: The War of Rohirrim, a full the Lord of the Rings reunion panel you can watch, how the OG Hobbit actors stay in touch every day on a groupchat, and the true message of the Lord of the Rings film trilogy, according to Gimli himself - John Rhys-Davies.