Ema Horvath Gives An Early Look At Her New Rings Of Power Character Eärien - Exclusive

When Aragorn leaps on high from the Seat of Seeing full onto a group of Uruk-hai at the end of Peter Jackson's "The Fellowship of the Ring" film, the character shouts a loud, one-word battle cry. The one word? Elendil! The full-throated shout petrifies his enemies — as it should. After all, Aragorn is shouting the name of one of his ancient and most important ancestors.

Elendil is the first High King to rule Gondor and its sister kingdom of Arnor long before Aragorn is born. He and his family are born on the island nation of Númenor, far out off of the west coast of Middle-earth. His son is Isildur, the guy who eventually cuts the One Ring from Sauron's hand. Elendil also has another son, Anárion, but apart from that, we know very little about the rest of his family.

"The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power" is set during the Second Age, before Gondor is ever founded. When the show starts, Elendil and his family are still relatively unimportant members of the royal family of their home nation of Númenor. When we sat down to interview several of the show's Númenórean actors earlier this summer, Elendil actor Lloyd Owen mentioned that we're going to see a more fleshed-out backstory for his character's family. This includes a recently deceased wife, whom he is still mourning, and a young daughter.

Elendil only has two sons, Isildur and Anárion, in Tolkien's source material. However, "The Rings of Power" showrunners J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay have decided to add a younger sister to the male-centric family tree. The character is called Eärien and is played by Ema Horvath — and she gave us a peek into what we can expect from her.

When we asked Ema Horvath about her freshly minted character, the actress gave the following summary:

"Her name is Eärien. She's the baby of the family. I think she was created because the schism that happens on the island also needs to be reflected within the family. She serves a plot function in that sense." While inventing characters for the plot isn't necessarily a strictly Tolkienian approach, the idea of reflecting the political situation in Númenor within the family is interesting. Cynthia Addai-Robinson, who plays Queen Regent Míriel of the island nation, also spoke with Looper around the same time as Horvath and touched on this subject of political unrest in her kingdom, as well.

Along with serving as a political counterpoint, Horvath added that her character helps to fill the gap of her deceased mother. "She also replaces the feminine hole that's been left by the loss of our mother. At least, she's trying her hardest this season to be as much of a mother as she can be to her very troubled brother." The brother in question is Isildur, whom actor Maxim Baldry has repeatedly described as struggling to find his way in this first season.

Eärien may be a new face on the screen, but it appears the character may be in for a sizeable role nonetheless as she and her family struggle through the wake of severe loss and work through the midst of a national identity crisis.

The first two episodes of "The Rings of Power" are available now on Prime Video. Episode 3, which appears set to introduce Númenor for the first time on screen, airs on September 9.