In the books, Celebrimbor is duped by Sauron the deceiver into making the other seventeen rings. He isn’t aware of Sauron’s binding of them to the One Ring made in secret, until it is far too late to stop it. At that point, all he can do is try to control the damage that the rings have caused. In order to do this, he helps to try to hide the three rings forged by his hands, the only ones that Sauron hasn’t yet been able to corrupt. He refuses to reveal their whereabouts to the dark lord, which ultimately gets him killed.
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The Rings of Power series has already begun setting up the potential to explore Celebrimbor’s fate in later seasons. With the climax of Halbrand finally arriving in Eregion during the 8th episode, audiences began to understand how previous events in the story had hinted at the revelation of his identity as Sauron. He had managed to masterfully manipulate his way into Eregion, to be right where he needed to be in order to corrupt and influence Celebrimbor in the creation of the rings.
The hidden implications behind Halbrand’s injury in the penultimate episode allowed him to enter Eregion as a seemingly weak and wounded man, but also as an ally and a friend of Galadriel’s. This inevitably put him in a position of trust with all the elven smiths in the forge. He instantly began making suggestions, hinting at the need for a pure ore to mix in with the Mithril, and dictating the need for it to be a spherical shape. The haunting effect of this finally came to light when Celebrimbor echoed the words: “Not of the flesh, but over flesh.” At that point, Galadriel finally understood her mistake in trusting the mysterious man who had pretended to be the salvation of all of her problems, but was actually only the cause of them.
Sauron’s involvement with Celebrimbor’s vision for the rings is very much in line with Tolkien’s works. In the original lore, he pours his evil and his malice into the rings of dwarves and men, and convinces Celebrimbor to give them to the other races as gifts and promises of kinship with one another. But these are what cause the nine ringwraiths to come into being. It also prompts the fall of the kingdom of Khazad-Dum following a mine collapse caused by a Balrog, after the dwarven ring of power encourages Durin to dig too deep and awake a terrible evil.
Celebrimbor is finally alerted to Sauron’s treachery when Sauron creates the one ring in secret and places it upon his own finger. At this moment, Celebrimbor can see the binding that has been poured into the other rings. He hastens to finish the three elven rings and get them out of Eregion before Sauron can infect them. The elven rings are the most powerful objects next to the One Ring, and Sauron is furious that he has been discovered and that his evil plan has been foiled.
Celebrimbor smuggles the rings out of the force to be hidden and protected by Galadriel, Elrond, and Cirdan, the oldest elf in Middle Earth (who will later pass his ring on to Gandalf). Meanwhile, Sauron is marching on Eregion with an army of orcs at his heels. They capture Celebrimbor, who is unable to escape, and torture him horrifically until the point that he can no longer bear it. Eventually, he gives up the location of the lesser rings of men and dwarves. But try as he might, Sauron cannot make Celebrimbor reveal where the elven rings are being kept. He lays waste to Eregion, burns the forge to the ground, and kills all remaining people. It is also thought that Sauron may even have gone as far as mounting Celebrimbor’s body on a spike and waving it as a flag in warning to anyone else who might try to stand in his way, but there is no record of this in Tolkien’s works.
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