Prequels always come with some pitfalls. Ultimately, most of them are rooted in the problem of predictability. Because this is all the backstory of an existing story, we know where the pieces need to get by the end. There's a piece of advice in storytelling (it might specifically be screenwriting, but I think it applies to all fiction) which is to start as far into the story as possible and finish as early in the story as is possible. The idea here is to make sure that the part of the story that your readers/audience is seeing is the most important part - the most satisfying, distilled into the highest drama.
On the other hand, though, fantasy as a genre is one that is often concerned with the larger, broader histories and mythology of its world. Fans of fantasy love to delve into the "lore" of the world, and while there are some more recent stories that play with that - such as The Witcher's ground-level protagonist who gets swept up in grand, epic tales despite belonging to an order that more or less requires a humble, borderline cynical focus on the practicalities of day-to-day survival - Tolkien's Middle-Earth (and the broader fantasy world in which Middle-Earth exists) is the quintessential font of fantasy lore.
But when we are introduced to characters here, we know that Galadriel and Elrond are going to live into the end of the Third Age (we're only in the Second right now,) and that Sauron's going to make those rings, that Numenor is not long for this world, and that that ambitious young Isildur is going to cut Saruon's fingers off and then find himself unable to toss the One Ring into the fires of Mount Doom.
Thus, to create dramatic tension, the show turns to what I think a lot of prequels do, which is not "what's going to happen," but "who is secretly the big bad?" And that trope is... Ok, see, the thing is, when that trope is used in an original story, it can be really impressive: the big reveal that some "good" character is actually evil (think L.A. Confidential as an example of this trope done really well). But because this is a prequel, and of course a serialized show with week-long gaps between episodes, what it creates is practically an AR-game where viewers go online to piece together clues.
And given that we're going to be talking about the answers to some of those mysteries, let's put a spoiler cut:
SPOILERS AHEAD
In the Lord of the Rings novels, and more or less in the films (minus the odd Palantir-conversation with Saruman or ominous voices Frodo hears while wearing the Ring) Sauron is an implied presence. The films make Sauron's eye literal, so I guess one technically sees him plenty of times, but in the books, the Eye of Sauron is a metaphor. Like the formless wraiths that the Nazgul have become, Sauron is not, I believe, physically present anywhere, but a disembodied shadow that exerts his will in subtle ways.
In other words, none of the characters in the novels ever actually encounter Sauron, unless you count the Ring itself, which holds a great part of his essence. The lack of the Ring prevents Sauron from existing in a physical form, and thus limits the power he can exert.
But we know that during the Second Age, he had no such problems, because he either hadn't made the One Ring, or he still had it on him. We know that he came to the people of Middle-Earth in a fair form as "Annatar," the bringer of gifts, and pretended to be this wise and generous elf who had come up with these ingenious designs for rings that would enhance the power of the people who wielded them.
Rings of Power compresses the canonical stories of the Second Age to allow them all to take place within a human lifespan - in the original works, the sinking of Numenor and the Last Alliance were far apart.
We have checked off some boxes, though, because yes, Sauron was imprisoned in Numenor for a time (though he wasn't known for who he was) and he did "teach" Celebrimbor how to make the rings (with some subtle suggestions when working as a kind of junior apprentice).
Let's get this out of the way: Halbrand is actually Sauron. The so-called King of the Southlands pulls some clever "the devil doesn't lie" moves by pointing out that what Galadriel had thought was a lie to cover up his royal identity - that he had taken the royal crest of the Southlands off a dead man - was actually totally true.
I'll confess that it wasn't until I saw someone else's commentary from two episodes ago that I began to truly suspect that Halbrand was Sauron. Instead, I'd assumed he was going to be one of the Ringwraiths - perhaps the Witch-King of Angmar (or future Witch-King, as it wouldn't be until the Third Age that Angmar had any reason to exist) - and that he might accept a ring on the promise that it would give him the power to rule over his kingdom after it had been so devastated by the orcs.
But no, the "King of the Southlands" is, appropriately, the Lord of Mordor. His anger at Adar, and demands of whether Adar remembers who he is are based on the fact that Adar did strike back against Sauron.
It was in this finale that Halbrand's mask truly begins to fall away, even as we are faked out in the cold open. The confidence he shows with Celebrimbor doesn't really jive with the "reluctant king" act he had been playing earlier.
The ultimate reveal happens when Sauron, unmasked, gives Galadriel his pitch: that he's not trying to destroy the world, but only trying to mend it and atone for what he did under Morgoth's domination, and that he'd happily have her be his queen. The way the show portrays it, I feel like this comes off as a lie he doesn't totally believe. I think it's a delicate balance to strike: the root of Sauron's evil is hubris, believing that he's brilliant enough that he can handle absolute power, and that the world would be better off with him in charge. Implied within that egotism, of course, is a lack of faith in others, not to mention God (aka Eru Iluvatar) to do their part.
Tolkien's great forces of good are those who share power, and remain humble before it. Gandalf doesn't blast Sauron with magic, but instead uses most of his power to rally people to come together and fight against evil. The elves basically go through this crisis throughout the Third Age, reluctant, but ultimately willing to leave the world in the hands of humanity, and trust that humans can be the stewards of Middle-Earth.
Evil, then, and its lust for power, is born out of an "only I can fix this" mentality. And this is a mentality that is in direct opposition to what God Himself possesses - Eru creates the Ainur to aid in the music of creation, humble enough to collaborate despite being the very source of all existence.
(I think that there's a more radical version of this mythos that Tolkien might have written if he hadn't been an old-fashioned monarchist, but that's just my fixation.)
Anyway, the perhaps surprising thing is that Galadriel keeps this revelation to herself. It's clear that, while the forging of the three Elven Rings happens (requiring her to sacrifice the dagger her brother gave her, which contains pure gold and silver from Valinor,) Elrond discovers the pedigree scroll that proves that Halbrand is a fraud, but Galadriel lets the rings be made and does not tell anyone what she has learned for... reasons?
This is another trope that comes up in genre shows: people not telling other people important things for reasons that feel more to do with keeping the plot moving than being true to the characters. Why would she not immediately run up to that tower and say "guys, we need to stop this right now, because that dude is fucking Sauron!"?
Modern discourse on prestige television (and pop culture in general) is unfortunately trapped in this deeply polarized state, where opinions are kind of centrifuged to either adulation or condemnation. Thus, when I'm enjoying something, the presence of flaws and weaknesses can feel painful - like my opinion is being torn in two directions.
And ultimately, I like this show. I really like Morfydd Clark's anchoring performance as Galadriel, who does a very good job of selling the strangeness that is the eternal nature of elves - being simultaneously possessed of the energy of youth and the wisdom (and pain that comes with it) of extreme age. The show is also very pretty. I also like that it seems to understand an underlying ethos that is key to Tolkien's worldview - that true goodness exists on the small scale, in the love of other people, of nature, and of stories.
Indeed, it's rather telling that when Sauron asks Galadriel to be his queen, he proposes the relationship as being one of some kind of mathematical counterbalance - that she will keep him anchored to good while he provides her with power - and not out of any genuine love or affection.
Speaking of which:
Over the course of the season, Nori's story has revolved around The Stranger (in a plot that, so far, doesn't directly connect with any of the others). Arriving as a meteorite, the plot is actually extremely similar to one in the computer game Diablo III. Both involve an angelic creature crash-landing to earth in the form of a confused human man who does not remember who he is, and whose memory is restored when he takes hold of a magical artifact.
We still don't know precisely who The Stranger is. The implication is strong that this is Gandalf, especially given his line toward the episode that he and Nori should go in a certain direction because it smells better there "when in doubt, always follow your nose," a line Gandalf uses in Moria.
However, in that prequel-hinting trope, we're given a few red herring hints that this is, in fact, Sauron. You could even maybe think that because Adar "killed" Sauron, he needed to return to Middle-Earth via that meteoric impact. But it's been very clear that The Stranger possesses an innocence and genuine care.
If we take the example of the orchard, which we saw The Stranger restore, you could imagine that Sauron might want to "fix" that, but we know that Sauron's idea of a solution would not be to just let the trees grow again, but instead to make some kind of industrial food-producing facility that would pump out technically nutritious but foul and bitter stuff with ruthless efficiency. Sauron's evil makes him incapable of letting something just grow on its own.
However, our trio of pale Sauron-worshippers are tricked. This is, actually, foreshadowed cleverly by having the human guy from the village (I can't recall his name, but he's the one who ultimately turns the key to ignite Mount Doom) mistakenly greet Adar as Sauron. These evil people are looking for their dark messiah, and they're so eager to submit to him that they don't seem to apply a lot of critical thinking.
The pale Sauron cultists, whose names I only got from captions (and only the two who speak - I want to say The Ascetic and The Nomad) think that they're going to help Sauron recover his strength, and think he's lashing out at them because he's confused, but ultimately realize that they've seriously fucked up when The Stranger burns them away with blinding, holy light. The forms that they take before the light fully consumes them look rather wraith-like, but I don't know what to really make of that - were they wraiths to begin with?
Again, The Stranger's identity is most likely Gandalf - not only the line about following one's nose, but his being welcomed into the world by a Harfoot might explain his abiding love for Hobbits later on.
Simply having any of the Istari (which he is officially confirmed to be) show up before the Third Age is, I believe, a breach of the canon, though one that I'm not terribly upset by. However, they are leaving it ambiguous whether he really is Gandalf or not. (Briefly, when the Nori finds him unconscious on the ground while the extra-pale, silent cultist is disguised as him, I thought maybe they had found another Istar and that he was actually one of the Blue Wizards, but then quickly realized that made no sense).
There is a bit of J.J. Abrams mystery box stuff here that I used to absolutely gobble up, but now makes me wary. If The Stranger is the first Istar to arrive, that would, I think, likely mean he's actually Saruman. That would be a somewhat tragic reminder that Saruman was, in fact, a true good guy up until the War of the Ring. The fact that he's intending to go east into Rhun (sorry if I forget accents) actually lends a little credence to the notion that he could be one of the Blue Wizards.
The benefit of having him be one of the Blue Wizards is that Tolkien wrote next to nothing about them (I think he hadn't even settled on canonical names for them,) which would give the showrunners some fresh soil in which to plant some new stories.
Sadly, though, I think that "franchise expectations" are probably too strong to make him anything other than Gandalf.
And so, we conclude the first season of I believe the most expensive television show ever produced. Can that money translate into cultural impact? The show operates in the shadow of the beloved films, not to mention the beloved novels. I'm curious to see how it develops - if it can learn from its strengths and its weaknesses to come back better in the second season.
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