After Galadriel spent all season of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power hunting for the Dark Lord Sauron, the finale revealed he was closer than she ever thought. There are some interesting results of turning our collective image of Sauron from an impersonal, abstractly evil Dark Lord into someone young, charismatic, slyly manipulative and–yes–hot. The finale also opened with a fake-out relating to the Stranger. These reveals underline the biggest takeaway of the story: that it can be difficult to tell the light from the dark, but ultimately everyone has the ability to choose between good or evil. So how did all this come together and where did the first season leave us?

So much of human existence is defined by the fight between good and evil - but what if they’re hard to tell apart, and we can’t always even tell which side we’re on?

Transcript

Spoilers ahead: After Galadriel spent all season of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power hunting for the Dark Lord Sauron, the finale revealed he was closer than she ever thought. Halbrand, Galadriel’s companion who she championed as the rightful King of the Southlands, is in fact Sauron in disguise. Sure, a lot of the internet had been theorizing this all along – and a big part of viewing Rings of Power has been the game of trying to guess which character will turn out to be Sauron. But there are some interesting results of turning our collective image of Sauron from an impersonal, abstractly evil Dark Lord into someone young, charismatic, slyly manipulative and–yes–hot. The finale also opened with a fake-out, pointing to the Stranger—who some thought to be Sauron—but in the end he shows his true nature

These reveals underline the biggest takeaway of the story: that it can be difficult to tell the light from the dark, but ultimately everyone has the ability to choose between good or evil. So how did all this come together and where did the first season leave us?

SO WHAT HAPPENED?

Things are looking bad for the heroes of Middle Earth. Galadriel’s joint expedition with Numenor has failed, and the Southlands has been transformed into the wasteland we now know as Mordor. Celebrimbor, the master elven smith, has been trying to use the mithril found by the dwarves to forge an artifact that will save the elves. But the mission is failing, until Celebrimbor gets some useful crafting tips from a surprising source: Halbrand. It’s during this forging that Galadriel becomes increasingly suspicious of Halbrand, especially after she gathers that he spoke to Celebrimbor of exerting a power–words she’s heard before about Sauron’s goals. Her research then reveals that Halbrand isn’t the heir to the Southlands throne, and when she confronts him, he admits the truth: After Galadriel rejects Sauron’s offer to join him

she still allows Celebrimbor and Elrond to go ahead forging the first of the Rings of Power – as long as they make three rings–setting in motion the events that will lead to the forging of the other rings of power, including the One Ring. Meanwhile, a trio of dark mystics track down The Stranger and tell him he’s Sauron before the Ascetic realizes his true identity as an Istar

and it looks likely that The Stranger is another iconic Lord of the Rings character: Gandalf. So what does all this mean?

“in your tongue it means wise one or wizard”

- The Ascetic

SAURON REVEALED: LOOKS CAN BE DECEIVING

The earlier episodes already plant clues for the revelation that Halbrand is Sauron. The first time we meet him, he reminds us not to trust appearances. Early on, Halbrand displays a keen interest in the forges of Numenor, and the craft that eventually will eventually lead him to create the One Ring. In fact, his advice to Galadriel perfectly presages Sauron’s later strategy in using the One Ring to control the other Rings of Power. When pushed, his fighting ability rivals elves.

He subtly apologizes for killing her brother. We almost never see him alone or get a true sense of his inner workings, and he directly tells Galadriel:

“I am not the hero you seek.”

Ironically, when Galadriel finds Sauron, he doesn’t want to raise the evil that Galadriel foresaw. When he says this to her, we might assume he’s just trying to manipulate her. But J.R.R. Tolkien wrote both in The Silmarillion and in his private letters that Sauron did repent after the war that defeated his master, Morgoth. During the period that Galadriel was hunting for Sauron, Sauron was, in a sense, hunting for himself, trying to make amends for his crimes. It’s just that, crucially, Sauron’s version of healing means imposing order on Middle Earth. In his mind, order essentially is “good”–and creating order means ruling over Middle Earth, thus justifying his desire for total power.

Sauron: “Together, we can save this Middle Earth.”

Galadriel: “Save, or rule?”

Sauron: “I see no difference.”

The eternal battle between good and evil is at the heart of Tolkien’s works, but his writings capture how this showdown is a lot more subtle than it might first seem. From the very beginning, The Rings of Power positions Galadriel at the intersection of light and darkness—and as she tells her brother Finrod in the first episode, sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference.

By the end of the first season, Galadriel discovers that she’s made this very error of looking at things upside down championing a darkness she mistook for light. And her brother’s advice for how to orient oneself comes back into focus.

GALADRIEL’S TRAGEDY

The fact that Galadriel is the one who sets Sauron on the path toward becoming the Dark Lord is what makes her arc so tragic. Tolkien’s work engages a lot with the tragedy of hubris and how the good fall. Throughout The Lord of the Rings, men, dwarves, and elves struggle to resist the allure of the power of the One Ring, and the most successful heroes are those who display humility. And in The Rings of Power, in classic Tolkien fashion, Galadriel’s pride and single-minded quest to vanquish Sauron ends up bringing the evil back, as she actively convinces Halbrand to return to Middle Earth, saves his life, and brings him to the elves.

After her centuries of seeking Sauron, when Galadriel’s force of elves abandon her and, back home, the Elves try to send her to enjoy eternal peace in Valinor, Galadriel still can’t let go—and it’s her decision to jump off the ship that first leads to her meeting Sauron on a raft in middle of the sea. Eventually, Galadriel’s fiery commitment to her mission can make her as cruel and brutal as her enemies. She’s mirrored in both Adar–the leader of the Orcs, who’s himself an elf on the wrong side of a fine line–and in the young, angry human Theo, whom she tells something she’s unfortunately learned from her own mistakes: While we go into the story knowing that Sauron is evil and Galadriel is good, these two feel, often, much closer than we’d expect. There’s an interesting mirroring happening between Light Galadriel and Dark Sauron–both in their strong kinship and mutual understanding, and in the way they both save each other. Even when Galadriel starts to suspect Halbrand and attempts to pause the forging operation, she inadvertently gives him a crucial idea:

Galadriel: “Perhaps we’ve been pushing ourselves too hard.”

Halbrand: “Supposing that’s the trouble. Supposing we’ve been using too much force?”

Using Halbrand’s ideas, Celebrimbor and Elrond first plan to make a crown but then, instead of concentrating all that power in one object, decide to put it into two smaller ones–rings–that can be shared. After the Sauron reveal, Galadriel still thinks she can help diffuse the temptation of total power by instructing the elves to make three rings and she insists that the power of the rings: Galadriel at last lays down her sword, literally melting the dagger that belonged to her brother to provide the high-quality alloys needed to forge the artifacts that can save her people.

But the damage is done: as the mithril drops into the melted metal, it forms the symbol we will eventually come to know as the Eye of Sauron. And we know that her plan to limit the rings only to the elves fails: These are just the first three of the twenty Rings of Power–which also include nine given to mortal men, seven given to dwarf kings, and Sauron’s One Ring to rule them all. Of the three elven rings, Nenya, the ring of water, will eventually be worn by Galadriel. Vilya, the Ring of Air, is eventually kept safe by Elrond, while Narya, the Ring of Fire, later passes to Gandalf. And that leads us to the question: who is the Stranger?

WHO IS THE STRANGER? THE CHOICE BETWEEN GOOD AND EVIL

The theme that “looks can be deceiving”–and good and evil easily mistaken–is also reflected in the way the initially harsh ruler Miriel strives to protect her people, and especially in the storyline of The Stranger. He first appears in flames and displays sometimes-dangerous uncontrolled powers, yet he’s been sent to help Middle Earth. The Stranger is convinced that he is fundamentally evil, but Nori repeatedly tells him she sees good in him, and that it’s his decision to make. So like Sauron, The Stranger makes a choice about what he wants to be. Tolkien writes that five Istari were sent to Middle Earth as guiding spirits intended to help people fight against Sauron: Saruman The White, Radagast the Brown, two unnamed Blue Wizards, and, of course, Gandalf the Gray. But even the Istari have a choice between good and evil. Just as Sauron turned away from the light, Saruman is corrupted away from his original purpose, while Gandalf chooses to help Frodo and the people of Middle Earth. Even though the Stranger’s name isn’t explicitly confirmed, toward the end of the finale he delivers one of Gandalf’s lines from the Lord of the Rings movies. And his friendship with Nori helps establish just why Gandalf takes such a liking to halflings, and why he tends to rely on them during his later adventures.

Meanwhile, Galadriel also faces a key choice in the finale when Sauron offers to make her his Queen. Sauron tries to prey on Galadriel’s proximity to darkness, using Finrod’s image to suggest to her that he isn’t so bad after all. He appeals to the palpable bond and cosmic connection between them to tempt Galadriel in what’s almost a romantic entreaty. But while he does want Galadriel to join him and feel a strong cosmic connection with her, this isn’t the same as offering her real love. He’s also likely driven by wanting to remove her as a threat. And Galadriel sees through his false promises that she could make him good, understanding his true goal is to use her to help him rule. This sequence sets up her other iconic scene in The Lord of the Rings where, thousands of years later, she again refuses temptation, turning down the One Ring and the prospect of becoming a dark queen in her own right. Galadriel’s misguided belief in Sauron is also a dark mirror of another major theme in Tolkien’s work: The importance of forgiveness. Galadriel has such a fundamental belief in forgiveness that she insists, no matter what, Halbrand can still be redeemed for his crimes. Her opinion quickly changes when she learns who he really is. Here Sauron credibly challenges Galadriel’s commitment to redemption–because if she truly believes anyone can be forgiven, there should be no limit to this. And in The Stranger’s storyline, Nori is right to see potential goodness in this mysterious man that others fear–so it’s difficult to ever know if another will prove worthy of our leaps of faith. Yet ultimately, it’s clear that Sauron doesn’t deserve or truly want forgiveness. His choice is to pursue power above all.

Galadriel: “No penance could ever erase the evil you have done.”

Halbrand: “That is not what you believe.”

CONCLUSION

Even the most morally righteous people are not infallible, and pride always goes before a fall. We learn this over and over in The Lord of the Rings, and The Rings of Power illuminates just how tricky it can be to navigate the paths of good and evil, as emotions like pride and even the desire for what we think is justice can blind us to the danger right in front of our faces.

“Find the light and the shadow will not find you.”

- Bronwyn