Season 2 of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power has arrived, and with it, a mysterious new villain—the Dark Wizard, played by Ciarán Hinds. He’s stirring up trouble in the eastern lands of Rhûn, and it looks like he’ll be a serious problem for the Stranger and his allies, Nori and Poppy.  3o202s

While we spent season 1 wondering about the identity of the Stranger, it seems this season is for the Dark Wizard. A showdown is clearly brewing between the two, and we can’t help but speculate on his true identity. 

The Dark Wizard’s arrival 61p3x

To understand where this new villain fits in, let’s rewind to the end of season 1, where the Stranger faced off against a cult of Mystics who thought he might be Sauron. They revealed that he was, in fact, an Istar—a member of the same order as the legendary wizards Gandalf and Saruman. Season 2 kicks off with the Mystics’ leader returning to Rhûn, where she meets her real master, the Dark Wizard. With a powerful staff and mysterious magic, the Dark Wizard reveals he knows the Stranger’s true nature, sending his riders after him instead.

Who is the Dark Wizard? 3p156o

Although season 2 has come to an end, the identity of the Dark Wizard is yet to be revealed. When the dark wizard and the stranger finally meet, the dark wizard calls him “old friend.” With all the chaos and confusion the character has caused, fans have taken it upon themselves to unveil who he is. One leading theory is that this Dark Wizard might actually be Saruman. In Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings lore, Saruman begins as a wise and respected leader among the Istari. Yet, his fascination with Sauron’s power and the One Ring eventually leads him down a dark path. It’s not impossible to imagine Saruman leading a secret cult in the faraway lands of Rhûn, building power quietly and gathering followers. 

Another possibility is the mysterious Blue Wizards, Alatar and Pallando, who ventured to Rhûn in Tolkien’s stories on a mission to prevent men from following Sauron. According to some s, they ultimately failed and created their own cults, teaching their followers magic and receiving worship. Fans are considering that the Dark Wizard could be one of the Blues, possibly altered in this adaptation to become a major antagonist.

A very big and enticing candidate is Khamûl, the only Nazgûl who Tolkien specifically named. In Middle-earth’s history, Khamûl was once a king of the Easterlings, the people who lived in Rhûn. Like the other future Nazgûl, he was given a ring of power by Sauron and eventually became a wraith. Perhaps this character could be a pre-corrupted version of Khamûl, serving as a Dark Wizard before his transformation into a Nazgûl.

Finally, the Dark Wizard may be an entirely original addition to The Rings of Power. Tolkien left many details about Rhûn vague, which gives the showrunners plenty of room to invent a unique figure for this storyline. With a fresh villain, The Rings of Power could surprise fans while deepening its exploration of Rhûn’s dark magic and mysterious cults. With the Dark Wizard’s identity still under wraps, The Rings of Power has set up an intriguing mystery that’s sure to keep fans guessing.

I don’t know what Hollywood’s thought process is exactly when it comes to popular and beloved stories, but as far as the fans are concerned, it certainly shouldn’t involve the words cashing in, milking, and dragging.

Much to the dismay of Middle-earth enthusiasts, the whole industry has decided to ride the gravy train of their favorite book The Lord of the Rings. After Amazon’s failed attempt at bringing J.R.R. Tolkien’s world to live-action through The Rings of Power, which just wrapped up its abysmal second season and proved to everyone that the true dark lord was Jeff Bezos all along, it seems that Warner Bros. wants a little piece of that action, and it has contracted Middle-earth alums like Phillippa Boyens, Peter Jackson, and Andy Serkis to take on the challenge.

This new film was announced to be set before The Fellowship of the Ring, and involve Gandalf and Aragorn’s hunt for Gollum. Later, Sir Ian McKellen (Gandalf’s actor in the LOTR and Hobbit trilogies) implied in an interview that the so-called Hunt For Gollum would be split into two films, making fans wonder if everyone in Hollywood has truly lost their minds.

Now, during another interview with Empire, Boyens has explained that the hunt for Gollum isn’t going to be two films, but there’s another script being ideated set in The Lord of the Rings timeline.

“I can tell you definitively it isn’t two films!” she explained. “That was a genuine misunderstanding that happened because we’ve begun to work, conceptually, on two different live-action films. The first being The Hunt For Gollum, the second one still to be confirmed.”

Oh, well, thank Eru Eru Ilúvatar and all his stars for that, I guess. Here I was thinking that making two films out of what’s essentially a two-paragraph anecdote by Gandalf in the books was a recipe for disaster. Now I have to dread the possibility of a film that even the writers aren’t too sure about, or they’d have announced it already.

Boyens further explained that since most of her ideas currently involve Gandalf, we can expect Sir Ian to appear in at least two more live-action Middle-earth movies. (This reminds me of the Deadpool & Wolverine joke; they’re going to make him do this till he’s 90… quite literally, in this case.)

“We’re playing around with a number of ideas, but most of those ideas do include Gandalf,” The scriptwriter explained. “So Gandalf would potentially return for two live-action films.”

And since no one is keeping this madness in check anymore, why not add a second anime film besides War of the Rohirrim to the mix? Boyens says that if the movie is successful, she already has “an absolute banger of a second film” cooking in her brain. Though why stop there? Why not make it a trilogy while we’re at it? *Sighs* They never learn, do they?

What is The Hunt for Gollum about? 4s5u43

If you’re still not clear on what The Hunt for Gollum is all about, it’s a story that happened off-screen in the movie trilogy and only briefly mentioned in the books. To confirm that Bilbo’s ring was indeed the weapon of the Enemy, Gandalf set out in Eriador in search of Gollum, a journey that took him all over Middle-earth. Eventually, he called upon Aragorn to help him in this search, and together they found Gollum’s trail and managed to capture him. They interrogated Gollum and left him imprisoned in the care of the Wood-elves of Mirkwood, from which the cunning creature eventually escaped.

For good or ill, this ramshackle premise, barely a story at all, will comprise the majority of The Hunt for Gollum, directed by Andy Serkis.

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If there’s one thing Amazon loves even more than ruining your favorite stories, it’s overdoing the good old concept of a mystery box to the point that it loses all its narrative potency. Unfortunately, it seems they have yet to take the hint even after the poorly received Sauron mystery in The Rings of Power and the Dragon Reborn in The Wheel of Time.

The Rings of Power season 2 finale confirmed that the enigmatic Stranger who arrived through a shower of meteorites in season 1 and wandered in the deserts of Rhûn during the recent run is none other than Gandalf, the Grey Pilgrim. The wizard slowly came to his own with the help of Tom Bombadil and even managed to find his iconic stave after refusing to forces with the Dark Wizard terrorizing the easternmost parts of Middle-earth. But now that one mystery has been solved, fans are wondering if the other Istar is Gandalf’s counterpart from The Lord of the Rings, Saruman the White.

Everything about the Dark Wizard, from his bearing to his staff and mannerisms and the way he addresses Gandalf by referring to him as “old friend” seems to imply he’s Saruman, but then, it could also be a deliberate red herring to keep fans guessing until season 3.

Fortunately, we have more to go on than that.

Is the Dark Wizard in The Rings of Power Saruman? 3b1437

The Dark Wizard in The Rings of Power could not possibly be Saruman, because that would have catastrophic repercussions for the established canon. The head of the Istari becomes enamored with Sauron’s power many thousands of years after the events of the Second Age, and even then, his treachery is quickly revealed to the rest of the Free Peoples, his reputation immediately tarnished in the eyes of Elves and Men and even Gandalf himself.

So how could Gandalf confront Saruman so early in the history of Middle-earth and forget all about it by the time The Lord of the Rings takes place? In fact, on this particular note, even the showrunners seem to agree that they can’t just play fast and loose with the lore. When recently asked if the Dark Wizard is Saruman, this is what Patrick McKay had to say.

“No, no, I’ll say something on the record. Given the history of Middle-earth, it would be highly, highly, highly improbable that this could be Saruman.”

That only leaves three other Istar sorcerers; Radagast the Brown, and the two Blue Wizards, Alatar and Pallando. I think it’s safe to say that we can rule out Radagast as well. We’d sooner think Faramir or Merry and Pippin capable of turning evil than point a finger at Radagast the Brown. So, our Dark Wizard is one of the two Blue Wizards; mysterious and enigmatic, with an unknown doom. All we know is that the two Blue Wizards journeyed east to fight against Sauron’s evil, but what became of them no one knows, not even those who remain of the lore keepers of old in the west.

And if the Dark Wizard is one of the two, then the fate of the other is still undetermined. Perhaps he could even make an appearance in the course of The Rings of Power season 3 and beyond. But the showrunners want you to know he has a very important part to play yet.

“The Dark Wizard has an important role to play in the doings of Middle-earth,” McCkay continued. “And in the development of our wizard, who’s now coming into his own. Tom Bombadil has told him, ‘You’re destined to face him. And then destined to face Sauron.’ So the Dark Wizard’s fate is not decided and his name is not out there yet, but it would almost defy the laws of gravity and physics for it to be Saruman.”

We can’t wait to see how that confrontation will pan out. The first two seasons of The Rings of Power are currently available to stream on Prime Video.

I am not surprised by most of the reactions to Prime Video’s The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. I am an avid, ionate fan of all things Tolkien, and I myself have many complaints about how the streamer brought a gorgeous, ethereal story to the small screen.

I’m also part of the Star Wars fandom (and married to an outright Galactic expert) so I’ve seen the toxic depths to which ionate fandoms can fall. People can, and will, hate anything with a burning ion, and if you mix in a diverse cast with a weak approach, that hate will escalate to Middle-earth-shaking proportions.

But somehow, despite my cynical “excessively online” status, my longtime hip to the official Tolkien fan club, and my own massive issues with Prime’s money-hungry approach to telling its tale, I still somehow found myself surprised by a search term that began trending in the hours after Rings of Power aired its season 2 finale. That question, my good Eriador wanderers, is whether or not Galadriel, Elven queen of the Noldor and the Teleri, Lady of Lórien, of Light, of the Golden Wood, wife of Celeborn and mother of Celebrían, dies in the prequel trilogy that precedes The Lord of the Rings. Sigh.

Does Galadriel die in The Rings of Power? b5x5y

I know this article’s headline says I have “one thing” to say to the absolute doorknobs wondering if Galadriel will meet her end in Rings of Power, but I actually have quite a bit to say. To begin, I suppose I should answer the brainless question so many newcomers to The Lord of the Rings are asking online: No, you ninnyhammers, Galadriel does not, and will not, die in The Rings of Power.

The Prime Video project is notably a prequel, which means it comes about long, long before the events of The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. About 3,000 years, to be precise. And, since Galadriel is a prominent player in both trilogies — and played by the unforgettable Cate Blanchett, no less — it honestly boggles the mind that so many people are confused about her survival in a story that happened thousands of years ago.

Now I’m going to give about two-thirds of the people asking this question the benefit of the doubt and assume they are young newcomers to Middle-earth who are beginning their journeys with The Rings of Power. If that’s the case, and you’ve simply never seen or read The Lord of the Rings or The Hobbit, I forgive you. That’s a reasonable question to ask, particularly considering the events of the season 2 finale, and I am happy to answer it for you.

Now, I turn my focus to the one-third of curious minds who no doubt simply lost their sense at some point in the last decade of unprecedented happenings. You sweet, silly dotards, you forgetful tomnoddies, what in all the Void outside creation are you thinking? Did the presence of such a vital character, a woman who weirdly became a romance for Gandalf in The Hobbit, and the subject of several utterly memorable quotes (including the opening that introduces us to the background of the world), just slip your minds? Or were you so utterly disgusted, so impossibly disappointed, in Prime’s blasphemous delivery that it escaped your memory? Or do you think so little of the streamer (reasonably) that you genuinely thought it would just kill off a vital canon character for shock value?

Regardless of what happened to steal your sense for a moment, let me be the one to correct you. Galadriel is alive and (mostly) well in Rings of Power, and she still has many a path to tread before her story ends. She will not die in future seasons of the series, nor will she die in any future remake of The Lord of the Rings or The Hobbit. She shall remain Galadriel, a flawed but powerful pillar of femininity and grace, until someday, after ing the most demanding of tests, she quietly walks away from millennia of power, and departs into the West.

The second season of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power is officially behind us, and fans are still dissecting the thrilling, but occasionally confusing, events that kicked off across the eight-episode season.

Season 2 was, in the eyes of most fans, a major improvement on season 1. Its still no Peter Jackson trilogy, and it doesn’t even match up to the Hobbit films that followed, but the series is starting to get a better beat on its own direction. Things are ramping up, a few epic battles got fan blood pumping, and Charlie Vickers is carrying the entire series on his shoulders with an enchanting portrayal of the Dark Lord.

Now that 19 of the 20 Rings of Power have been forged, its all about who will ultimately wield them. The Dwarven and Elven rings have already been distributed, and we’ve seen several characters — including Galadriel and the ill-fated lord of Khazad-dûm — eagerly flaunt their new commanding accessories. But one ring we’ve seen very little of is the third Elven ring, Narya.

Rings of Power‘s three eleven rings, and their wielders 37o5r

In total, 20 Rings of Power will be forged across the Prime show’s incoming seasons. In season 2 alone, a full 16 rings were created, with seven of them distributed to the Dwarf-lords in their mountain halls, and nine rings intended for the kings of men prepped and ready to enslave them for thousands of years.

At the tail-end of season 1, the first three rings — those intended for the Elves “immortal, wisest and fairest of all beings” — were created, and distributed among the Elves. The first two rings have been frequently referenced — and used — by their main-character wielders, but the third ring has hardly seen a mention. It was shown directly after its creation, prettily displayed alongside its peers, and then again early in season 2, when Elrond tasked Círdan the Shipwright with whisking them out of Gil-galad and Galadriel’s reach.

Círdan does not keep the rings away for long, however. He ultimately returns both Nenya, the ring of water, and Vilya, the ring of air, back to Gil-galad and Galadriel. Each swiftly don their new rings, and (apart from a few trade-offs) continue to wear them over the course of the season.

Narya’s wielder is revealed in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment near the end of season 2’s first episode, and then isn’t mentioned again across the course of the season, so its entirely understandable that viewers were confused. But as he’s ing the rings off to Gil-galad, Círdan reveals that he has already laid claim to the third Elven ring.

Círdan the Shipwright is Narya’s first wearer, and he’ll continue to possess the powerful ring — the ring of fire — for awhile still. Eventually, however, the ring will hands. Galadriel’s is the only of the Elven rings to remain with the same bearer across Lord of the Rings stories, but both Vilya and Narya are destined to welcome new bearers eventually.

Narya is in Círdan’s possession for the time being, but by the time The Lord of the Rings rolls around, it will boast a new owner: Gandalf. Círdan es the ring to Gandalf quickly after meeting him, determining that he contains the strength of will to wield such a powerful item, and to use it in Middle Earth’s defense. Gil-galad makes a similar decision when he es off Vilya to Elrond, whom he deems wise and cautious enough to protect it, but unlike Galadriel (and even Gandalf) the eventual Master of Rivendell choses to hide the powerful item away, rather than wear it openly.

Warning: The following article contains spoilers for The Rings of Power season 2 finale.

The Rings of Power season 2 finale changed the power dynamic in the Dwarves’ mountain kingdom of Khazad-dûm, but what do we know about this new contender for the throne? And is he a part of the line of Durin?

To know about Durin’s Folk, we first have to discuss the first of their race and their eldest, Durin the Deathless. When the Vala Aulë, in his yearning for the arrival of the Children of Ilúvatar, created the Dwarves and aroused the Creator’s ire, Durin was one of the little creatures he had fashioned in a pale imitation of Elves and Men. Ilúvatar reprimanded Aulë and reminded him that he lacked the power to create living, animate things, at which point Aulë repented and decided to destroy the Dwarves. Brought to pity, Ilúvatar then spared the Dwarves and gave them independent life, but said that they shall awaken after the Elves have arrived at Middle-earth.

Many years later, the Seven Fathers of Dwarves woke up under the stars. Durin the Deathless was one of them, and he wandered the nameless hills of the world until he came to the place now known as Khazad-dûm. There he built a tribe and a people called Durin’s Folk, who went on to represent one of the seven factions of the Dwarves in Middle-earth.

Many characters in The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, like Gimli son of Gloin and Thorin Oakenshield, hail from the House of Durin. And since The Rings of Power also shows us the Dwarven realm under the Misty Mountains, Prince Durin IV and his father Durin III also come from the line of Durin the Deathless. But now, the series is bringing up a younger brother for Durin IV, making fans scratch their head in confusion and wondering if the fourth king succeeding Durin the Deathless ever had a brother in the books.

Did Durin IV have a brother in The Lord of the Rings? 5d514p

With King Durin III now dead, it is up to Durin IV to pick up the mantle and lead the people of Khazad-dûm in this perilous war against Sauron. There is a catch, though; The Rings of Power continues to insist that Durin has a younger brother, and now certain factions within Khazad-dûm are planning to supplant Durin IV and crown this as-of-yet unrevealed sibling.

Leafing through the appendices to The Lord of the Rings, it’s never explicitly mentioned if Durin IV had a brother. All we know is that he reigned for some time in the Second Age before ing the mantle (and the Ring of Power) to his son Durin V. After Durin V came Durin VI, and after him came Náin I, and then Thráin I, and then Thorin I. The kingship was then bestowed to Glóin in the third millennium of the Third Age, succeeded by Óin, Náin II, and Dáin I. Dáin I gave up the throne to Thrór, whose son Thráin II, was Thorin Oakenshield’s father.

All of that’s to say, there’s no mention of a younger brother for Durin IV anywhere, but since we know that the latter will be the king of Khazad-dûm, his brother (an original conception of Amazon’s for the television series) is likely to meet an untimely demise at some point in The Rings of Power.

A recent report revealed that, to protect talent from online abuse, Hollywood studios are now often taking over their social media, with their permission, and proactively managing the information available about them to prevent doxxing.

According to Variety, this is one of many practices put into place in the recent past to combat online vitriol and backlash that very rarely has any ties to legitimate criticism and most often comes from a place of hate — against people of color, against gay people, and against women.

In the last few years, “anti-woke” hate campaigns have taken over fandom culture, primarily in spaces that were once dominated by white male individuals and that have become gradually more diverse with the increase of positive representation of minorities in the media at large. In its early days, online fandom was frequently the conduit for conversations about celebrating difference, rooted in a community that found common ground not by way of what they looked like or who they loved, but by way of a deep ion for shared interests. It was the place where you could just be yourself.

Naturally, when minorities started asking the dominant sectors of society to treat them with the respect they deserved, which would mean learning to shut up once in a while, it gave way to violent resistance in the form of a “free speech” push across platforms, notably led by Donald Trump and Elon Musk. Suddenly, movie studios that were trying to listen to those rallying for change were met with a barricade of angry keyboard mobs bullying them into staying the same, forever.

The same Variety report lists several Star Wars and The Lord of the Rings properties as prominent case studies of fans lashing out at the casting of actors of color to play characters in fantasy realms. These fans can accept wookies, ewoks, orcs, and hobbits, but they draw the line at Black people. But the problem also extends to outspoken white women like Brie Larson, Erin Moriarty, or Rachel Zegler, who dared question the system they worked under or the shortcomings of the characters they were cast to play.

The list is never-ending and while some of the projects affected were genuinely poor and deserved criticism on of their lackluster narratives or underdeveloped characters, people chose to target the cast and their personal identities instead. No longer feeling like you’re your favorite brand’s targeted and most privileged demographic most likely affects this brand of haters in ways that make them immune to common sense or reason, so the only way they could find to regain control over this universe that was once considered exclusively theirs was through gratuitous cruelty.

Thankfully, the reason this group of people is so much louder than the millions of fans who still engage with things in a normal way is because they’re not that many, so they need to make up for it somehow. John Van Citters, VP of Star Trek brand development, told Variety, “The number of people who live and die on their franchises are very, very few, and then those who come after things that they espouse to love with venom are a really, really tiny subset of that already smaller subset of fandom. It’s just much easier to see it now.”

Studios are still trying to contain this phenomenon with fan-oriented focus groups and social media strategies that uplift the positive and try to drown the negative. Regardless, we’re thankful they’re still trying to move the needle, regardless.

One such example is Marvel’s Agatha All Along, which features the first gay romance between two main characters in the franchise’s history. Yes, obviously, it was review-bombed, but it also has the best continuation rate (viewers sticking around after the first couple of episodes) of any Marvel show, according to the company’s head of streaming Brad Winderbaum. Haters may be loud, but most viewers aren’t listening. They have better things to do.

Warning: The following article contains spoilers for The Rings of Power season 2 finale.

The last episode of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power season 2 premiered today on Prime Video, bringing Amazon’s billion-dollar television venture to another controversial and contentious close. Here’s a recap of everything that happened in the finale.

“Shadow and Flame,” referring to the Balrog of Khazad-dûm, opens with Prince Durin trying to dissuade his father from mining the mountain deeps to no avail. The king opens the way into the heart of Khazad-dûm, where they are confronted with the Balrog. The king comes to his senses at the last minute, and taking off the ring, charges the Balrog head-on.

In Eregion, Sauron continues to torment Celebrimbor to retrieve the nine rings of Men, but the greatest of Elven smiths resists his every verbal and physical jab. Enraged, Sauron stabs Celebrimbor with a spear, but not before the latter gets the last word in. “You’re their prisoner,” Celebrimbor says, referring to the artifacts they created together. “Sauron, Lord of the Rings.”

Meanwhile, Galadriel is leading the survivors of Eregion out of the city when Adar’s orcs surround her. They take him to Adar, who, upon wearing Galadriel’s ring, has realized that his scars can be healed using the power of the Three. Galadriel beholds Adar in his original Elven form, but the Lord-father takes off the ring and offers it back to Galadriel. They vow to kill Sauron together, but Adar is betrayed and killed by his own Uruks, at which point Sauron emerges from the woods and reclaims Morgoth’s crown.

Sauron asks Galadriel to give the rings over to him, but she refuses, and the two start to duel, Sauron wielding Adar’s sword and Morgoth’s crown and Galadriel using her sword and Nenya, the Ring of Adamant, to oppose him. Sauron gets into Galadriel’s head and manages to beat him, finally claiming the nine for his own. Galadriel withholds Nenya from him and jumps from the cliff face to get away. The Dwarves of Khazad-dûm finally arrive at Eregion and cover the Elves’ retreat, allowing High King Gil-galad and Elrond to escape with the rest of the refugees.

Over the seas in Númenor, King Ar-Pharazôn persecutes the Faithful by connecting them to Sauron, and Elendil is forced to escape from the capital of Armenelos to the west, where the Faithful might still hold some power. Prince Durin mourns the death of his father the king, and learns that some in Khazad-dûm wish for his brother, as of yet unrevealed, to become the next ruler of the mountain kingdom.

On the other side of Middle-earth, the Stranger journeys to the Stoors’ haven, and there finds the Dark Wizard waiting for him. The Stranger refuses to with the fallen Istar, forcing him to leave and attempt to kill everyone in the dwelling. The Stranger taps into his powers to save them, whereupon he and Nori Brandyfoot say goodbye to one another and part ways. The Stranger finally finds his staff and returns to Bombadil, who confirms that he will go on to be called “Gandalf” by the peoples of Middle-earth.

The Rings of Power season 2 closes with Sauron’s machinations bearing fruit and leaving all the lands in darkness and doubt, but the finale takes us to the Elves in the final moments, who seem to have found the vale of Imladris, the so-called Last Homely House in the east, where Elrond will build Rivendell.

Gil-galad asks whether they should go on the offensive or prepare to defend against Sauron’s onslaught, and Galadriel suggests that the way to fight darkness is not through strength, but light. The sun shines through the east and Gil-galad, Elrond, Galadriel, and Arondir look at the remnants of the Elves down in the glade, with the High King raising his sword and exciting a cry of defiance from the onlookers.

Who were the original ring-bearers in The Lord of the Rings and what became of them by the end of the books? The creation of the rings of power by Celebrimbor, under the guidance of Sauron, changed the fate of Middle-earth forever.

Where before the Free Peoples had to contend with the will of the dark lord alone, and battle only the devilry that came out of Mordor, the rings of power allowed Morgoth’s lieutenant to directly influence the rulers of Middle-earth and wreak chaos across the lands.

Three rings were given to the Elven lords, who used them to set up great havens for their kind in Lindon, Imladris, and Lothlorien. Seven were given to the Dwarven kings, who, in their greed, “dug too greedily and too deep,” and brought about their own ruin. And nine rings were given to the rulers of Men, who immediately yielded to its power, buying immortality and a measure of power at the cost of their sanity and will. And then Sauron created the One Ring deep in the heart of Amon Amarth, Mount Doom, and used that ring to bind the rest to his will.

Of course, you’ll already know most of this if you’ve watched the intro to Peter Jackson’s The Fellowship of the Ring, but what you may be wondering is which rulers were given these rings of power, and what ultimately became of them. Here’s everything we know about ring-bearers and their fate in the Fourth Age of Middle-earth.

The three Elven rings and their fates 504d6e

The purpose of the three rings was to preserve life and ward off the decay of time. These were Nenya (Ring of Adamant), Narya (Ring of Fire), and Vilya (Ring of Air) first given to Galadriel, Círdan the Shipwright, and High King Gil-galad, respectively.

Galadriel continued to wear Nenya until the end, using it to safeguard Lothlorien against the Shadow rising in the east. Círdan gave his ring to Gandalf when he came to Middle-earth to counter Sauron’s evil, while Gil-galad’s ring ed on to Elrond after his death.

When Sauron put on the One Ring for the first time, the elves immediately knew of his presence and took the rings off. But after Sauron’s defeat in the War of the Last Alliance, the ring-bearers could once again use the power of the Three to the benefit of their peoples. After the destruction of the One Ring, the Three lost all their potency, and so began the inevitable decay of the Elven realms that had previously resisted the natural entropy of the world.

The seven Dwarven rings and what became of them 1s3u18

After sacking Eregion, Sauron forced Celebrimbor to give him the rest of the rings of power. Six rings he gave to the Dwarven kings, who, using their power, amassed great wealth and became known for their greed. It’s also said that Sauron gave a seventh ring to Durin III, an event depicted in Amazon’s Rings of Power series. The line of Durin would inherit this ring until it came to Thrain II. Sauron imprisoned Thrain in the dungeons of Dol Guldur until he gave up his ring. (The events of which are depicted in The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug.)

According to lore, four of the seven Dwarven rings were destroyed by dragon fire, while Sauron reclaimed the other three when he returned in the Third Age. The Deceiver offered to give the rings back to the Dwarves in exchange for their fealty during the events of The Fellowship of the Ring, but they sent back his dark emissary without a second’s hesitation. Apart from Durin III, it’s not clear who their original bearers were, but we do know that they, too, lost their strength after Frodo destroyed the One.

The nine rings for mortal Men, doomed to die 3t4l

Sauron had advised the smiths of Eregion to create nine rings for Men. These rings could prolong their life and give them immortality, while also bestowing them with invisibility and a keen awareness of the wraith-world.

The nine lords of Men used this to gain wealth and glory, but they were all too easily corrupted. In time, they became part of the wraith world and enslaved by Sauron, neither living nor dead, tormented by the power of the One until their eventual destruction in Mordor.

Who these people were, we don’t know, but it’s implied that at least three were Númenorean lords. That means that when Sauron inevitably gets the nine rings from Celebrimbor, he’s going to visit the island kingdom. (We suspect the current king, Ar-Pharazôn, or his son, are likely to the Nine Nazgul.)

As for the rest, there is the Witch-King of Angmar, the Lord of the Nazgul, whose background is ambiguous, and then there is his second in command, Khamûl, the Lord of Dol Guldur, who was probably an Easterling hailing from the lands of Rhûn.

The One Ring and its bearers 1e4q59

There were three main ring-bearers in the course of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, and these were Bilbo Baggins, Frodo Baggins, and Samwise Gamgee, who briefly carried it when Frodo was taken captive in Cirith Ungol.

But chronologically, many people came in with the One Ring and were in one way or another influenced by its power.

First, there was Sauron, who created and poured his life-force into it. Then came Isildur, who took the ring from Sauron’s finger, thus destroying his threat in the Second Age. The ring betrayed Isildur and fell into the river Anduin. It was then discovered by Déagol, whom Smeagol (Gollum) killed.

Gollum retreated into the Misty Mountains and remained there for hundreds of years, until Bilbo Baggins came along and stole the One Ring. He kept it for sixty years, until Frodo Baggins inherited it and went on his journey towards Rivendell. Besides Frodo, who mainly carried the Ring all the way to the mountain of fire, three more people touched the ring; Gandalf, when he discovered it in Bag End for the first time, Tom Bombadil when he handled it in his house and seemed unmoved by its power, and lastly, Samwise, who safeguarded it for a little while in the final stretch of the journey.

As we know, the world of Middle-earth is a land of strange creatures beyond count, but some of them are reckoned much higher in the mind of their creator, Eru Ilúvatar.

Since The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power takes place in the Second Age, we’re much closer to Tolkien’s creation myth than the Third Age of the main book series would allow. For instance, in Númenor, worshipping the Valar as deities is still very much a thing, and you repeatedly hear them being mentioned.

In this latest episode, the new ruler of Númenor, Ar-Pharazon, decides to let the Valar judgment on Elendil to determine whether he’s innocent. Miriel decides to take Elendil’s place at the last moment, and the sea-worm, supposedly an emissary of the Valar, deems her worthy of being exalted among her kin.

But who are these Valar, and where do they reside?

Who are the Valar or Ainur in The Lord of the Rings? 4j110

Tolkien’s creation myth, recounted in the posthumous release The Silmarillion, begins like this:

“There was Eru, the One, who in Arda is called Ilúvatar; and he made first the Ainur, the Holy Ones, that were the offspring of his thought, and they were with him before aught else was made. And he spoke to them, propounding to them themes of music.”

In essence, the Ainur were the highest of Eru’s creationist offspring, each embodying an aspect of his character. The greatest of these Ainur was Melkor, later known as Morgoth the Black Foe, the first dark lord and the personification of evil in Middle-earth. The rest of the Ainur were gods in their own right, and they used their power to shape the world before the coming of Elves and Men and Dwarves.

Of course, the distinction should be made that while Ainur had godly powers, they were not to be worshipped, and the Faithful in Númenor don’t exactly worship the Valar, but rather know them to be emissaries of Eru.

These are the undying Lords and Queens of the Valar:

• Manwë — The King of the Valar, husband of Varda
• Varda — Queen of the Stars, wife of Manwë
• Ulmo — King of the Sea
• Aulë — The Smith, husband of Yavanna
• Yavanna — Giver of Fruits, wife of Aulë
• Oromë — The Great Rider, husband of Vána
• Vána — The Ever-young, wife of Oromë
• Nienna — Lady of Mercy
• Lórien — Master of Dreams and Desires, husband of Estë
• Estë — The Healer of Hurts, wife of Lórien
• Tulkas — Champion of Valinor, husband of Nessa
• Nessa — The embodiment of Ainulindalë, wife of Tulkas
• Mandos — Judge of the Dead, husband of Vairë
• Vairë — The Weaver of Fate, wife of Mandos

And forever they shall dwell west of Middle-earth, over the Sundering Seas, in the undying lands of Valinor.

It is said in The Lord of the Rings that Sauron the Deceiver gave seven rings to the Dwarf lords, but what happened to these artifacts of power in the second and third ages of Middle-earth?

In the ongoing second season of The Rings of Power, Sauron the Deceiver, in the guise of Annatar, creates seven more rings of power for the Dwarves. He gives one to Durin III, who rules over the realm of Khazad-dûm in the depths of the Misty Mountains. Durin III uses this new gift to uncover hidden pathways in the mountains that lead to light, which saves Dwarrowdelf from starvation. Durin then puts on the ring to locate the precious stones deep beneath the mountain , which we know, from the history of Middle-earth, will end in a disaster for Durin’s Folk.

Now, if you’ve found yourself wondering what happens to the rest of the six rings, and whether they have a part to play in the War of the Ring, which was depicted in the main sequence of The Lord of the Rings novels, then we’ve got you covered.

What happened to the seven Dwarven rings? k2k37

In the chapter “The Shadow of the Past,” Gandalf says that Sauron gave seven rings to “dwarf-kings,” which implies that only the rulers of the seven dwarven clans received rings of power. These were Durin’s Folk, Stonefoots, Blacklocks, Stiffbeards, Ironfists, Broadbeams, and Firebeards.

But perhaps the most important thing about the seven Dwarven lords who received these rings was that, unlike the nine lords of Men who received rings of their own and immediately succumbed to Sauron’s will, these stone rulers were resistant to the influence, and so the dark lord failed to gain any measure of control over them or their kingdoms. The Dwarves’ natural stubbornness was something that Sauron hadn’t ed for, and so he had to spend many hundreds of years recovering these rings or watching them be uselessly destroyed.

That said, the rings did give their lords some power by bringing them vast wealth. It’s even hinted that the legendary Seven Hoards of the Dwarves were the product of the rings of power. The Dwarves grew steadily greedier due to the rings’ influence, and that indirectly benefitted Sauron in the long run.

In the Third Age, by the time The Lord of the Rings takes place, four out of the seven Dwarven rings have been destroyed by dragon fire, with the other three having been reacquired by Sauron. Sauron’s messenger to Erebor, as explained in “The Council of Elrond,” offers to return the three rings in return for the Dwarves’ allegiance, which they refuse.

Interestingly enough, one of these three remaining rings is Thrór’s ring, ed down to his son Thrain II, who was captured and tortured in Dol Guldur by Sauron until he gave it up. (We see glimpses of this in Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug.)

With the destruction of the One Ring and the downfall of Sauron, it’s safe to assume that the powers of the remaining Dwarven rings also faded away.

As a Lord of the Rings fan, I can’t decide what I hate more; that Amazon Prime Video is ruining one of my favorite things in this world, or that despite its shortcomings, The Rings of Power is one of the better adaptations out there, if only through the sheer power of its source material.

Even many decades after its release, and in no small part thanks to Peter Jackon’s acclaimed movie trilogy, Tolkien’s oeuvre casts a large shadow over the storytelling tradition of the West, and the legacy of The Lord of the Rings is one of unsullied reverence. Reverence towards a fictional world that set in motion an entire literary genre. Reverence towards an author who understood the plight of modernity better than any of his intellectual contemporaries. Reverence towards timeless characters whose bravery is as limitless as their nobility is archetypal. Reverence, perhaps, towards a world whose beauty is unmarred by the conflicts that beset it. A celebration of language in its most natural rhythm, of poetry in its most potent form, of storytelling when it lights a fire in the hearts of men.

The Lord of the Rings is the bulwark upon which all stories in the speculative domain — and in that sense, most of the entertainment industry — throw themselves to be measured and appraised. It is the golden standard not just for the creative types, but also for the audiences, who recognize the quality of a story that will never die.

And so, in this uncertain day and age, when moral ambiguity is the rule of thumb for epic stories, when the storytelling tradition is a hundred-hued amalgam of contrasting ideologies and buried traditions of a time long past — romanticism, realism, absurdism, modernism, and any sort of favorable -ism you could think of stirred in an incongruous soup of ideas — revisiting The Lord of the Rings is a fool’s bargain.

Because while we’d be happy to overlook failed attempts at adapting stories, and even laugh at the hit-and-miss nature of Hollywood — though it misses more often than it hits these days — the return of The Lord of the Rings is a grim reminder of everything we’ve lost in the process of building this enormous, content-churning machine.

The Rings of Power is not a failure on its crew’s part. In fact, I’d venture to say it’s not a failure at all, and the numbers will certainly corroborate that, as far as the shareholders are concerned. The Rings of Power is exactly what it needs to be to survive in this landscape, exactly what Hollywood’s formulaic approach and all those tiresome focus groups would have led to; perfectly generic, utterly unambitious, non-threateningly neutral, creatively docile, thematically bankrupt.

Why, then, are we outraged? Is it so strange to see The Rings of Power follow in the footsteps of almost every major production in the last decade? Did we think that just because we’re dealing with The Lord of the Rings it would somehow evade the dark pits where the dreams of millions of fans have gone to die? That because Tolkien was fundamentally opposed to the inner workings of our industrious modern lives, the very corporations he hated with a ion (Disney being among them) would leave him be?

The Rings of Power is but a symptom of a larger disease that’s slowly swallowing the entertainment industry whole. But I’m not writing this just to give a philosophical sermon. I want to discuss what it is, exactly, from a technical aspect, that’s ruining storytelling in this age of content frenzy.

The death of style, the demise of form 325c2s

Only The Lord of the Rings is big enough, and perhaps revered enough, to elicit this level of discernible outrage. The only thing comparable to it today is Star Wars, and we all now know what happens to productions that take it too far in that community.

Whether it be Apple, Amazon, Warner, or Disney, what we have borne witness to over the past decade is a string of failed attempts at bringing some of our most beloved stories to life in television format, or even the big screens.

When you watch these shows individually over a long span of time, you may begin to notice similar trends, and analogous shortcomings in common where they all went wrong. But watch them back to back in a short period, and you realize it’s more than just terrible writers, contemptuous of the source material, that are bringing the whole house down.

Let’s talk about direction, for instance. Every decent artist learns early in mastering their craft to respect the tools of their medium. A novel works by virtue of its narrative structure and story, but what ultimately brings it all together are words. Words and poetry are also components of pieces of music, whose potency is at length defined by the tune and its composition. In the visual medium of cinema or TV, there is music, there is acting, there is dialogue, and there are set pieces, but it all boils down to the tool that defines point of view, which is the camera.

The camera is the main component of the visual medium. It also defines its most inherent characteristic, which is objectivity. Words are shadows that stoke our subjective and individual imagination, but a motion picture gives you an unchanging object, and is thus objective. The camera makes or breaks a story, and where style and form come into play, in both television and cinema, are mostly through the deft handling of the camera.

Why is this problematic for Hollywood today? Because the camera is almost a forgotten heirloom in most of these shows. The shot set-up is generic, the wide angles do not convey feelings, and the close-ups are random and haphazard. There is no sense of identity or style distinguishing one show from another, regardless of whether their budget is meager like The Wheel of Time, or egregious like The Rings of Power.

In great movies, the camera is a means to an end. In pretentious arthouse films, the camera is an end unto itself. In these new shows, the camera is a non-entity. It is there to depict the setup, but nothing more. The camera doesn’t tell a story, because the show is contingent on its own formulaic setup.

In Peter Jackson’s case, the director takes the least amount of time to set up some of the most important pieces of exposition and world-building in his movies. You don’t have to be told about the state of Rohan or its heraldry. You don’t have to read the history of Gondor, or have a side character explain it to you, to understand the majesty of the Tower of the Guard, or the nobility of this remnant of the old Dúnedain. All of this is conveyed through bold set pieces and even bolder camera angles. The costume design is not derivative, like The Rings of Power so desperately is in a bid to re-create the same vibes as the movies, and the dialogue is neither condescending in its tone nor complacent in the surety of its allusions to lore. Everything comes together in the service of the movie as a whole, to make it work.

I can’t understand Galadriel or sympathize with her cause, because despite cringe-worthy, egotistic declarations like “There’s a tempest in me!” or the fact that her screen time on the show is by now a couple of hours at least, The Rings of Power hasn’t gone out of its way to establish her as a compelling character. Modern Hollywood assumes this is done through extensive back-and-forth between characters, but all it takes is a few minutes of deft camera handling and a couple of lines of dialogue that don’t try to appeal to the audience’s emotion in a fake manner, but rather subtly explains where this character stands through action or indirect allusions.

This is how you would establish Aragorn in this new formulaic approach that pervades almost every production out there: You would have characters talking about how honorable and sentimental he is. You would even have him arguing with others over how right and justified he is in his cause, and how everyone misunderstands his intentions. Peter Jackson, on the other hand, has Aragorn suddenly jumping to action to save the life of a villainous creature like Grima Wormtongue. He has Aragorn freeing a horse because he’s “seen enough of war.” The first approach is shallow, on the nose, ineffective. The second one is subtle, nuanced, and memorable.

That’s the catastrophic truth about all of these shows; that I can barely a single scene from a whole season, or think about a particular, significant interaction a day after I’ve watched the latest episode. Hell, modern content is designed in such a generic way that you’d have trouble retaining most of it the moment you turn off your television.

I used to think this was done intentionally; that the idea was not to go to any trouble to make anything memorable. You don’t need a distinct artistic touch on any of these shows, because all it takes for the marketing to work (at least the way the producers see it) is to boast about numbers. 

“We have the biggest budget in the history of television!” Not even realizing how ludicrous the net result appears next to Peter Jackson, who made three movies and marketed them effectively with $281 million (equivalent of little more than $500 million in 2024.) “We have built thousands of set pieces!” Ignorant of the fact that without stylish, professional, story-driven camerawork, all of that money is wasted, and they’d have been better off using green screens. “Season 1 was the most-watched show on our platform!” But not re-watched, not re-visited, not talked about a mere week after its finale.

This disease doesn’t just plague The Rings of Power. It’s not about one production team, but all of them. It’s the business model itself. It’s a study in willful mediocrity, and the slow death of style and form in favor of a formula that yields the most profit in the shortest amount of time possible. And when it doesn’t work, it can’t possibly be the model’s fault. It must be the fans, who can’t appreciate something for what it is. It must be the minority who rails against diversity, never mind that there have been examples of extremely well-liked and acclaimed projects that also boasted of a diverse cast.

Because frankly, folks, a lot of these shareholders and business moguls don’t even see it the way you do. For them, Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings and Amazon’s The Rings of Power are one and the same. “He had elves, and so do we. He had epic battles, and so do we. What seems to be amiss?”

You have to it, it’s both amusing and frightening. How terrifying a fate my good friends, my fellow misplaced dreamers of another time and place, my dear Middle-earth devotees, for art, and artistic tradition, and form and style, and creative expression— of which our musings, our endless grumbling, our noisome nagging, is probably nothing but a dying mnemonic. A catechism, neither pleasant nor asked for, that we endlessly shout into the night. Or occasionally write down in a blog post.

But at least we still this cadaver of once superlative human expression and artistry. And that has to count for something, right?