Orodreth
King of Nargothrond after Finrod; the lord of the thwarted counsel
Name and Lineage
Orodreth — son of Angrod (per the final genealogies) or brother of Finrod (in the older), the prince of the House of Finarfin who succeeded Finrod as King of Nargothrond after the death at Tol-in-Gaurhoth. The textual history of his parentage is tangled (Christopher Tolkien’s genealogies note the shift); in the published Quenta he.
The King of the Caverns Orodreth’s reign is the story of the Caverns’ fall
— and his name matters for one persistent genealogical crux of the mythology (the father of Gil-galad), treated by Christopher Tolkien in The Peoples of Middle-earth.ween the secret safety of the caves (per the counsel of the wise) and the counsels of the furious.
- The counsel of Túrin: When Túrin came to Nargothrond, he wrought the change: he counselled open war (“counsel of despair”, the Quenta calls it — the abandonment of secrecy), built the great bridge of Nargothrond over the Narog, and took the love/trust of the king — Orodreth hearkened to him against the wisdom of the exiled lord —.
- The ruin: In the year the dragon came, Glaurung burst over the bridge — the crossing that Túrin’s bridge had made easy — and in the sack of Nargothrond Orodreth was slain at the door of his halls, and Finduilas died, and the Caverns were taken. The doom of Nargothrond is at the door of Túrin’s counsel (and of Orodreth’s folly in heeding it).
Significance
Orodreth is the counter-example among the kings of the Noldor: his fall comes not through pride but through weakness — the king who could not hold the secret, and whose realm was destroyed by the man he trusted. His name also matters for one persistent genealogical crux of the mythology (the father of Gil-galad), treated by Christopher Tolkien in The Peoples of Middle-earth.