During season one, the main mystery was “Who is secretly Sauron?” Several red herrings were thrown in to confuse the viewers, including Orc leader Adar, the mysterious Wizard, or the evil Mystics of the East. In the end, the human character Halbrand (played by Charlie Vickers) reveals himself to be Sauron all along before slipping away from Galadriel.
Throughout the production of the show’s second season, many false rumors began circulating from the set. The streaming service purposely put out these rumors to curtail who will really play the fair-form version of Sauron and complete his mission of creating The Rings of Power. One rumor our friends posted at Fellowship of Fans before getting redacted is that an entirely new actor would take on the role of Sauron. That Charlie Vickers (Halbrand) was simply Sauron’s “human form,” while the new actor would play Sauron’s “elvish/fair” form. This rumor turned out to be completely false.
Today, during Amazon Prime’s Upfront presentation, the very first trailer for The Rings of Power season 2 debuted. The trailer was heavily about Sauron’s return following the first season’s climax. The trailer reveals clearly that Charlie Vickers will indeed play the fair-form version of Sauron. He will also be returning to Eregion to complete making his Rings of Power alongside Celebrimbor. It is unknown if he will be given the name Annatar from Tolkien’s text, given that it is a First Age name. Though Nerd of the Rings has revealed, Amazon may request First Age information for their show on a case-by-case basis with the Tolkien Estate. For example, the silhouette of Morgoth in season one was shown during the prologue.
The show also breaks lore, considering they created the three Elven rings first instead of last. So it will be interesting to see how they work around that writing decision now that everyone (well, Galadriel for now) knows Halbrand was only “helping” create the eleven rings to inflict his influence but turned out to be Sauron all along. Unless, of course, Celebrimbor seeks out Sauron, regardless of his evil intentions, to learn how to create more rings in his own search for power.
The Rings of Power returns to Prime Video on August 29th