Rings of Power actually revealed Mount Doom’s origin story

Middle-earth has plenty of famous mountains, from the peaks of the Misty Mountains to Erebor, but perhaps the most important to the story is Mount Doom, the volcano at the center of Sauron’s evil domain of Mordor. In the latest episode of Amazon’s The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, we got a surprising and explosive origin story for the series’ most famous volcano.

[Ed. note: The story contains spoilers for The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power episode 6.]

Answering the obvious question, the answer is yes. It was actually Mount Doom that erupted towards the end. Galadriel is terrible at recognising Middle-earth’s location on a map. The Rings of PowerIt is the location of Ostirith’s besieged village. This land will eventually become Mordor.

Morgoth and Sauron had a grand plan for the creation of lush fields and mountains. The sword key triggered the flood and caused it to explode. This flood destroyed the land, thanks to the tunnels the orcs had already dug, and triggered an eruption of the volcanic Mount Doom (though in the show’s time it doesn’t have that name yet) until it erupted. The eruption produced molten rocks and magma that covered miles. It appears it will continue to scorch forever or until Frodo and Sam arrive with the One Ring.

While the history of Mount Doom isn’t very explicit in Tolkien’s lore, the show’s story does seem to mostly line up. We know that the land wasn’t always called Mordor, and that the name likely arrived after Mount Doom’s eruption, but there’s no mention of the eruption itself being caused by an intentional flood.

As for what will happen to the area next, and how long it will take before Sauron takes up residence there, we’ll just have to wait to see where The Rings of PowerThe next chapter is its story.