The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power Raised Many Questions About Sauron in Season One. Now, It Wants to Answer All of Them

Some viewers have seen the first chapters of season two of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, which will premiere on August 29. They confirm what the end of season one of the Amazon series hinted at: Sauron is the main character. Although his presence wasn’t explicit in the first episodes, the threat he posed was evident through deception, lies, and disguises. That will change in season two, where Sauron will apparently show his true (and evil) intentions.

Season one took us to the Second Age of Middle-earth, when the fearsome Sauron was on the run after defeating Morgoth, a being even more powerful than he was and whose origins went back to the very beginning of Middle-earth. Charlie Vickers played Halbrand/Sauron in this episode, posing as a warrior with a shadowy past who managed to fool Galadriel herself.

In an interview with ScreenRant, showrunner Patrick McKay explains how Sauron’s past will influence this new season. To give us an idea, he makes a comparison: Just like the beginning of the first season focused on the origins and motivations of Galadriel, this season will focus on those of Sauron. As such, we can expect a year infinitely darker and full of evil—a more sinister season.

McKay says, “At one point, we wanted to include some of that material in season 1, but we felt that the storyline benefited even more if we kept it for the top of season 2. So yeah, we did know this backstory, and we’ve always had a plan for the general, high-level trajectory of characters and storylines.”

In other words, the plan to talk about Sauron’s origins was always there: “One of the first ideas, in terms of scene work and the kind of beat and rhythm of the piece of season 2, was that we would start with Sauron’s origin story within the show. This particular season, we started writing in the middle of the pandemic when we were still making season 1. So long way.”

However, there are differences between this Sauron and the omnipotent Eye we met in Peter Jackson’s films. Naturally, McKay and the rest of the show’s creators plan to exploit them. As for the origins of Morgoth, Middle-earth’s first Dark Lord, Sauron was born as Marion, an angelic spirit. This origin undoubtedly left a mark on his personality, though not quite as evil as when he became the fearsome second Dark Lord.

What’s interesting about all of this is that if the production lives up to McKay’s promises, we’ll be delving into an area of The Lord of the Rings lore that the screen adaptations have barely explored, and that’s always very tasty. This doesn’t only apply to Sauron, but also to the great unknown to the general public, Morgoth. Knowing more about him will tell us more about the semi-divine Valar, and we’ll see the origin of the terrifying races of Middle-earth. Since it’s impossible to understand why Sauron is evil without learning about Morgoth, we’ll have to go back decades into the past to a Middle-earth that no one has ever seen.

Can Amazon go off on a tangent and invent a different, much more “human” origin for Sauron? Of course it can. However, some of the images in the trailers already hint at a Middle-earth that is different from Jackson’s films (and the series’ first season). It’s a glimpse into the future that should please anyone who is a fan not only of Frodo and company but of the whole complex web of relationships and origins that author J.R.R. Tolkien used to explain the foundations of his universe.

Image | Prime Video

Related | Netflix’s The Umbrella Academy Finale, Explained: Where the Hargreeves Go and What That Post-Credits Scene Means