Monoverantus

It was surprisingly hard to find a front-facing picture of runners passing the baton.

Funny that this might be the first case of Chen giving something a "theme name" that no one else buys...

Sure, but those details aren't anachronistic (except maybe Rath Dinen, but even if I had noticed that before, I can picture Númenor using similar architecture) the way Uruk-hai and Rohan in the Second Age are.

The one thing about the Prologue that's always bothered me is that this is clearly B-roll from the Burning of Westfold. Those are Uruk-hai and Dunlendings.

Tbf, I hear he's drunk

The TWIMG is definitely Gallagher's, jury's out on the Youtube clip. Although I highly doubt it, since, as @Holko so elegantly put it,

I guess that phrase also could refer to this, but I highly doubt that.

Confirmed.

Yes, those stepwise moves appear in her principle theme too, except never as many in a row.

Well, it appears as the teaser shows an Eagle... Here's Hera's theme(citation needed): As you can see, we have Éowyn fifths, and some classic Shore stepwise climbs reminiscent of the Fellowship B Phrase, or more crucially, Éowyn's proto-theme (5:58):

I think that's quite plausible. Even though it's stitched together, I'm quite certain we're hearing Nature material at 0:43-0:54, and something Éowyn/Fellowship-like at 0:54-1:05 (probably Hera's theme).

I'd rather see it as foreshadowing the triumphant role of the Hobbits' dencency and heroism. Pippin putting himself in extreme danger to save Faramir even though they are all likely to die soon mirrors how Frodo and Sam continue even after they've resigned themselves to a suicide mission. Victory would've been impossible without their sacrifices. Descending Thirds, Sauron, Rivendell, The Journey There, Mount Doom, Weakness and Redemption, The Grey Havens, Sauron, Descending Thirds, Sauron. Yeah, nah, I'm with Venom on this one. Three stepwise (here we go again) rising major chords have nowhere near the potential for a good, memorable theme as the mysterious line in the map scene. Even if Shore himself had scored TROP and Elven Pledge was his theme for Eregion, I'd say Bear's theme is vastly superior.

And there's a neat reminder that all these step-wise melodies are in essence derived from the rising scale:

As Chen says, they're both derivatives of Evil Times. But really, Shore has so many step-wise melodies in the bag that they almost blend together. One can just as easily make connections to the Grey Havens, Weakness and Redemption (which appears in the tremolo strings) or even the Shire theme. The opposite in fact, they're the same melody, with different chords underneath.