The Elven High King Gil-Galad is a prominent character in Amazon Prime’s The Rings of Power. While portrayed by English actor Benjamin Walker, he is not the only actor to have done so. New Zealand actor Mark Ferguson played Gil-Galad in Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy, but he only features in two brief scenes in the prologue to The Fellowship of the Ring. 

He’s first shown as one of the three Elven Ring Bearers and a minute later he’s stabbing an orc through the chest. It’s a dramatic moment, that culminates as the climax to the Elves’ battle with the orcs at the foot of Mt Doom.

But without context, most viewers are unaware of the importance of Gil-Galad as the Last High King of the Elves and the importance of Aeglos, the spear Gil Galad wields that the Enemy, Sauron, greatly feared.

Gil-Galad’s Planned One-on-One Battle With Sauron

However, Jackson’s original plan was for Gil-Galad to have a far more prominent role in the prologue of The Fellowship of the Ring, where he would be named, advance into battle with Elrond, and have a violent one-on-one showdown with the Dark Lord Sauron himself.

Their fight would culminate with Sauron burning Gil-Galad alive, which is the same fate Tolkien gave him in the Lord of the Rings’ Appendices.

Jackson did film more footage of Gil-Galad as the below photographs attest. 

Unfortunately, no images of his death have come to light. All we have is a storyboard that shows his fiery demise in detail.

Actor Mark Ferguson expressed his misgivings at being cut from the prologue:

“Of course, at the beginning, I thought there’s no way I could be cut out. I’m central to the plot, really! Having, you know, by being the only one who was going to head-to-head with Sauron. And while that battle is happening.”

Why Gil-Galad’s Scenes Were Cut?

Director Peter Jackson has made no comment on the removal of Gil-Galad’s big moment, though narratively speaking the character does distract from Elrond and Isildur, who both have more bearing on the plot to come.

Elrond leads the Elven army against Sauron’s forces. The appearance of Gil-Galad dilutes Elrond’s status in this scene.

Jackson wants the audience to remember Elrond, as chief among the Elves, because he is significant in determining the fate of Sauron’s Ring but also in assembling the Fellowship (in which representatives of Men, Elves, Dwarves, and Hobbits will set out on a journey to destroy the One Ring).

The prologue’s other prominent character, Isildur, who “takes up his father’s sword” and cuts the Ring from Sauron’s hand causing the Dark Lord to decorpealize and for his power to wane as he returns to his shadow form.

Isildur, though, is also important as the descendent of Aragorn, who leads the Fellowship and will one day reclaim the throne of Gondor. Aragorn worries that he carries Isildur’s same weakness.

In another flashback later in the film, Isildur refuses to cast the Ring into Mount Doom, despite Elrond’s urging. Instead Isildur keeps the Ring of Power, which corrupts him and allows Sauron to endure. Frodo must eventually resist the corruption of the Ring, and cast the Ring into the fire of Mount Doom, the only only place it can be “unmade”.

The connections between Elrond and Isildur are made more evident through Elrond’s daughter Arwen, who will one day become Aragorn’s wife and queen.

So, here we have two characters–Elrond and Isildur–who are intertwined in the story of the Ring, the destruction of Sauron, and their connection with the heir apparent to Gondor, Aragorn.

This pairing makes the inclusion of the Gil Galad, the High King of the Elves, redundant, despite his status among the Elves.

His story, instead, is far more important in the construction of the rings of power and Sauron’s eventual construction of the “One Ring to rule them all”, which is the object of Amazon’s The Rings of Power.