Sauron

We finally know who Sauron is. Halbrand was the Dark Lord all along. Here are all the clues you missed about Halbrand's true identity.

[Tarana Burke: What 'Me Too' Made Possible](https://time.com/6221110/tarana-burke-me-too-anniversary/?utm_source=roundup&utm_campaign=20221013) In reality, Adar has given that tool to one of his followers and is carrying a fake to fool his captors. In the last episode, Halbrand says Adar was both his and Galadriel’s enemy. She is so hellbent on tracking down Sauron that she misses all the hints he may be standing right in front of her. When she interrogates him on the raft, he says that her enemy lies in the Southlands, thus precipitating a series of events in which Galadriel convinces the Númenóreans to travel to the Southlands with her and suffer great losses during the creation of Mount Doom And then, of course, in the very next episode she does just that. [The Rings of Power](https://time.com/6205837/the-rings-of-power-amazon-most-expensive/) played coy about which character would claim the title of the Dark Lord by the end of its first season. In the very first episode he predicted that Galadriel would accidentally usher back the great evil that she hunted. And in the final episode, Galadriel brings him to the elven kingdom to be healed from a wound. “For the same wind that seeks to blow out a fire may also cause its spread.” Tolkien’s writings: In the mythology of Middle-earth, Sauron comes to the elves disguised as a “fair” man in order to trick them into forging the first three rings of power and learn their secrets in the process. Otherwise, his early encounter with Galadriel on the vast sea felt a little too random and fortuitious.

Since the time Halbrand was introduced in the 2nd episode of "The Rings of Power," there has been speculation about him being Sauron. There were a lot of.

During the time he was there, he was able to corrupt the rings. It was Isildur, son of Elendil, who had cut his fingers and separated the one Ring from the Dark Lord. Great mystery lay in the core of Mount Doom, and Sauron wanted to conjure all that he could and create the One Ring. The irony of the situation was that he was portrayed as the victim of his own doings. He knew that only there he could create the master ring, which would be superior to all the other rings. Adar considered the orcs his own children, and he believed that they deserved to be treated properly. Galadriel told the Queen that she could help her overcome her fears, as she was advised to do by Halbrand. So, Galadriel might have suspected that he might not be telling the complete truth, but she couldn’t ever assume that he could be Sauron, because he had covered his paths so well. He makes Galadriel believe that he had to leave his homeland because the orcs had attacked. A simple gesture of hiding the locket somehow made Galadriel feel that maybe he was the King of the Southlands, but he was hiding it due to guilt, humility, and benevolence. Sauron was deemed to be an excellent manipulator, and we saw in the end how he had tricked each and everybody he met and made his way to Eregion to meet with [Celebrimbor](https://dmtalkies.com/celebrimbor-tower-dwarfs-khazad-dum-in-rings-of-power-explained-2022/) and corrupt his creation. [Halbrand](https://dmtalkies.com/the-rings-of-power-theory-explained-sauron-disguised-halbrand-2022/) was introduced in the [2nd episode](https://dmtalkies.com/the-rings-of-power-season-1-episode-2-recap-ending-explained-2022-series/) of “The Rings of Power,” there has been speculation about him being Sauron.

SPOILER ALERT: The interview includes details about the Season 1 finale of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. In one of the biggest twists in the ...

And for him I think if he’s in charge, he can heal the world, he can order things. And I think Tolkien says that Sauron should be thought of as terrible, and I think there’s no debating the fact that eventually and at his core, Sauron is very evil. And he’s saying, I just want to be good, I’m sorry, and I want to start fresh. And I think it’s really nice because it sets the show up moving forward to watch his descent into real darkness. But I think in that exact moment, he feels this cosmic connection to this person. I was hoping that this would happen when creating the character that people were going to be like, is he genuinely repentant, is genuinely trying to be a good man and start a new life? VICKERS: I think she’s survival to him in that moment. I think they have a cosmic connection, but I don’t think it’s necessarily in his mind a king and a queen-like, husband and wife-kind of situation. He talks to her about healing Middle Earth, and that comes back to a lot of what Tolkien said about it in that at the beginning of the Second Age, he’d been brought low and he lingered in Middle Earth, and his power then very slowly reemerged. I think I tried to walk the line. Because the way I like to look at it is that, in order to deceive Galadriel, Pharazon, Miriel and all these people he meets who are legends of lore, I think he would have to be fully invested in this character, that he is this human character of Halbrand, feeling, experiencing living things as a human. I did all that and then I kind of just let that settle in my subconscious.

Galadriel (Morfydd Clark) began to suspect Halbrand was more than he seemed when he showed an abundance of interest in helping Celebrimbor (Charles Edwards) ...

It wasn’t until they were filming the third episode of the first season that the producers informed Vickers he was, indeed, playing Sauron. [Vickers told Variety](https://variety.com/2022/tv/features/rings-of-power-finale-sauron-halbrand-stranger-1235402886/) in a separate interview that Sauron “has a plan. “I had maybe six or seven auditions, and when I got to the end of the audition process, they gave me two monologues. Vickers told EW that he absorbed as much of J.R.R. But when she discovered that the last king of the Southlands died centuries before without an heir, Halbrand acknowledged that he was indeed Sauron – and that Galadriel had helped bring her archenemy home. After an initial misdirect that said Sauron was The Stranger (David Weyman), it was revealed later in the episode that the Dark Lord was, in fact, [Halbrand (Charlie Vickers)](/the-lord-of-the-rings-the-rings-of-power/191458/feature/the-lord-of-the-rings-the-rings-of-power-making-sense-of-the-biggest-moments-in-the-finale).

The Rings of Power's episode 8 finale names Halbrand as Sauron, The Stranger as an Istar that's likely Gandalf, and prepares Middle-earth for a different ...

These are all compelling plot points for The Rings of Power to run with for several more years, and if Payne and McKay continue to iron out the show’s handful of nagging issues, there’s a good chance it will. Then there’s Nori and Maybe Gandalf, who will continue to do their own thing in the largely unexplored realm of Rhûn — a perfect excuse for bold new production designs — while Númenor is poised for a coup courtesy of Pharazôn (Trystan Gravelle). Presenting Sauron as a three-dimensional villain falls outside the scope of the main Lord of the Rings narrative on the page and screen, but it’s firmly within The Rings of Power’s wheelhouse. [The Rings of Power has a stronger sense of direction](https://www.polygon.com/23391434/lord-rings-power-episode-7-review) heading into season 2. And while the “Halbrand” alias itself is an invention of Payne and McKay, a line of dialogue in “Alloyed” references the name Sauron adopted in the books, Annatar (or “Lord of Gifts”). [outed as Sauron](https://www.polygon.com/23342914/lord-rings-power-sauron-halbrand) and the identity of the [Stranger](https://www.polygon.com/23327884/rings-power-meteor-stranger-who-is-character-lord-rings-explained) (Daniel Weyman) confirmed as an istar (or wizard), which means he’s likely to become the one and only [Gandalf the Grey](https://www.polygon.com/lord-of-the-rings/22296103/gandalf-death-powers-origin-explained). [crafting magic rings](https://www.polygon.com/23403117/lord-rings-power-elven-rings-powers-galadriel-elrond) while disguised and was ultimately exposed — all of which applies to Halbrand in the show. Where Middle-earth continuity and The Rings of Power quickly diverge — and the operative word here is “quickly” — is in the timescales involved. On the plus side, the revelations in “Alloyed” serve a greater purpose than simply trying (and for the most part, failing) to shock us. In Tolkien’s writings, the angelic being who became known as Gandalf was sent to Middle-earth in assuming form to counter the rise of Sauron. [The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power](https://www.polygon.com/lotr-rings-of-power) season 1, at any rate. Tolkien’s source material](https://www.polygon.com/lord-of-the-rings/2021/1/6/22205252/lord-of-the-rings-movies-tolkien-meaning-historical-context) along the way.