News culture The Lord of the Rings: the identity of Sauron revealed in episode 8 of the series The Rings of Power!
It will have put our patience to the test throughout its first season… The series “The Rings of Power” broadcast on Amazon Prime Video has finally lifted the veil on the identity of two key protagonists in its story. If you want to know who Sauron is, don’t read the following and go watch episode 8!
Who is Sauron? A question you will never hear once more
Present since the creation of the world and capable of taking many forms to dominate Middle-earth without the knowledge of those who are nevertheless actively tracking him, Sauron will have cast his shadow over all the first season of the Rings of Power. From Maia descended on Arda alongside Melkor/Morgoth to the immaterial form of the Great Eye in The Lord of the Rings, Sauron had to appear in this new series, but in what guise? Knowing that the Dark Lord likes, throughout the Second Age, to change his face to manipulate and corrupt all those who can allow him to achieve his ends, we suspected that it was going to be difficult to see him. And even if the craziest rumors had sometimes foreseen it, it was ultimately the most chilling hypothesis of all that turned out to be the right one…
The masks fall in episode 8 of the Rings of Power!
Last warning if you have not yet finished watching the first season of the Rings of Power, the following text will be obliged to spoil you the most staggering element of the entire series. If you choose to read on, then you already know who Sauron is.. After a start to the episode that plays with us to turn around when we really don’t expect it anymore, the series finally deigns to drop the masks and tell us once and for all who Sauron is. Among all the new characters created for the series, Halbrand had everything of the archetype of the typical hero of fantasy works and some even saw him as a poor alternative to Aragorn, an impression almost confirmed when the charismatic brawler “turned out to be to be the King of the Southlands. Only here, the series has deliberately lied to us and the one who has become Galadriel’s closest traveling companion is actually her worst enemy. Of course, there were clues (his innate talent for blacksmithing, his duality of character, etc.) but no one really wanted to believe them. And especially not our heroine who saved his life (and vice versa) from the second episode, pulling him up to force him to bring out the best in himself. So when she realizes who is really in front of her, Galadriel is disfigured by the horror of this revelation.
Does the series go too far then by daring to suggest the idea of an alliance which revolts the Elf to the highest point with a Sauron who claims to seek redemption following having caused so much evil in the past? Even if, for Sauron, saving Middle-earth means ruling it… It must be understood that this coincides with the period when, following the fall of Morgoth, Sauron pretended to renounce all his evil deeds to hide in Middle-earth and escape the judgment of the Valar before descending back into darkness. The idea of seeing a Sauron such as the one presented to us in the series, at a time when he might perhaps never have plunged back into darkness, is therefore far from being aberrant.. Especially when we know what role Sauron will be called upon to play a little later, under the guise of Annatar, “the Lord of Gifts”. In any case, this is enough to revive the interest of the series before a second season which is unfortunately not regarding to show the end of its nose…
