“Headstrong, wild, and free,” Lord of the Rings: War of the Rohirrim ends with Hera riding off into the sunset after securing the future of Rohan and its new king.
“All of Middle-earth [and the real world, let’s be honest] knows the tale of the One Ring,” Miranda Otto’s Éowyn narrates in the opening scene. “But there are others… tales that light a path through the dark.”
Over 180 years before the Fellowship of the Ring, the movie follows Hera, the daughter of Helm Hammerhand, the ninth king of Rohan. When he accidentally kills a Dunlending lord in a fistfight, his son Wulf vows to avenge him, starting a war that leads to a new line of kings.
It’s a brief chapter in Middle-earth’s history (unlike Rings of Power), but a pivotal one, and I’ve broken down the main things you need to know by the end of the new Lord of the Rings movie.
How does War of the Rohirrim end?
War of the Rohirrim ends with Wulf’s death, the Dunlending army retreating, and Fréaláf becoming the 10th king of Rohan, beginning the second line of kings. Hera rides away to meet Gandalf, who has questions about the Orcs in the Hornburg – and specifically, the rings they were gathering.
As General Targg points out, Helm Hammerhand’s death (he died swinging, frozen in place, and bending the knee to nobody) should have ended the conflict. But Wulf is bitter, still resentful over Hera’s rejection, and he vows to make “this keep her tomb… without vengeance, this would have been for nothing.”
Hera prepares to defend Hornburg (now named Helm’s Deep after her father’s heroism): she finds a Great Eagle, who flies Helm’s armor to her cousin Fréaláf in a distant stronghold, and she tasks her guard Lief with escorting Edoras’ people to safety through a secret tunnel. She has a simple plan: Wulf wants to kill her more than he wants to conquer Rohan, so she can distract him while everyone escapes.
It works. Wulf drops the siege tower, and fighting ensues outside the keep, but he mostly focuses on Hera. Targg pleads with him to not take the bait, so he kills him for his insolence. “With or without honor, men bleed just the same,” he says.
Hera overpowers him, and as soon as she lowers her sword, he jumps at her again. She offered him mercy, but she’s left with no choice: she kills him with a shield, leaning on his neck until he can’t breathe anymore.
Why doesn’t Hera become the queen of Rohan?
Hera should have been the first queen of Rohan, but there’s two reasons why it didn’t happen: firstly, Rohan’s line of succession is exclusive to men, and there’s never been a ruling queen; and secondly (and most importantly), she didn’t want to be the queen.
It’s said from the beginning that Fréaláf is Helm’s successor, something that Hera doesn’t have a problem with. However, before Helm closes Hornburg’s doors to face off against Wulf’s forces alone, he does suggest that Hera would be the best choice to rule Rohan. “The day you were born, I was brought to my knees,” he tells her.
However, this isn’t like Viserys upending King’s Landing’s royal lineage with Rhaenyra, nor does Hera appear to have any interest in succeeding him. By the end, she’s exactly where she should be: riding off into the distance, free from any other connections to the wider lore (seriously, she never appears again in Tolkien’s source material).
Where does Hera go now?
Hera leaves Edoras to meet Gandalf, who wants to speak to her about the Orcs and the rings at Helm’s Deep. That’s all we know, and good luck finding anything else in Tolkien’s source material.
In short, Hera exists in Tolkien’s texts, but The War of the Rohirrim is a substantial expansion of her character. She’s only referenced in the author’s appendices, and she isn’t even named.
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Other adaptations have taken slightly different approaches; namely, in Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor, Helm accidentally kills her in a fit of rage, which leads to him becoming a Nazgul (it’s safe to say, that isn’t canon).
In an interview with Dexerto, director Kenji Kamiyama said Hera’s fate “ is up to all the fans who watch this movie to imagine… but for me personally, I think she must have been able to meet with Gandalf and do something big that played a very important role.”
Unfortunately, that’s literally all we know, and it’s unlikely we’ll ever catch up with Hera again (unless War of the Rohirrim is an extraordinary success, of course).
Was the One Ring in War of the Rohirrim?
No, the One Ring doesn’t appear in The War of the Rohirrim – but I understand why you think it did.
When Hera stumbles upon the Orcs gathering rings, they put one in their bag that looks a lot like the One Ring. While others have different colors and jewels, this one is plain gold, albeit you can’t see any elven script).
At this point in the Third Age, the One Ring belongs to Gollum, and he eventually loses it when it falls into the Dark Lake, where Bilbo Baggins finds it during the Quest of Erebor. In other words, it definitely isn’t the One Ring.
What are Gandalf and Saruman doing?
As we see at the end of the movie, Saruman is the new master of Isengard, while Gandalf will likely be in the Shire with the Hobbits.
We know War of the Rohirrim takes place in the 2700s (roughly), so by this point Gandalf and Saruman have been in Middle-earth for thousands of years (if not much longer, if we take Rings of Power’s timeline into account).
This means they’ve already formed the White Council and Saruman has probably already allied himself with Sauron.
As Fellowship of the Ring explains: “Soon after he took up his abode in Isengard. For this, Beren, Steward of Gondor, gave him leave, for Gondor still claimed Isengard as a fortress of its realm, and not part of Rohan. Beren also gave into Saruman’s keeping the keys of Orthanc.
“That tower no enemy had been able to harm or to enter. In this way Saruman began to behave as a lord of Men; for at first he held Isengard as a lieutenant of the Steward and warden of the tower. But Fréaláf was as glad as Beren to have this so, and to know that Isengard was in the hands of a strong friend. A friend he long seemed, and maybe in the beginning he was one in truth.”
War of the Rohirrim is in cinemas now. You can also find out which book Lord of the Rings writer Philippa Boyens wants to adapt, if Aragorn will be recast in The Hunt for Gollum, and check out what’s been happening with Rings of Power Season 3.
