The Rings of Power writer explains why they changed Tolkien’s canon

The first season of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power was historic; it was the most expensive show ever made, and Amazon is hoping it’ll be a big hit. It could do worse than leaning on The Lord of the Rings to make that happen, since it remains one of the most beloved book series of all time.

But The Rings of Power didn’t just tell The Lord of the Rings story we all know. It’s set thousands of years earlier, during the Second Age of Middle-earth. This is a period that J.R.R. Tolkien didn’t write much about, which allowed the producers a lot of leeway in figuring out what would happen. For instance, they do bring in Sauron, one of the most iconic characters from the franchise, but they don’t reveal that he’s Sauron until the very end. For most of the series, he’s a dude named Halbrand.

Why pull this elaborate bait-and-switch? “We wanted a foil for Galadriel,” writer Gennifer Hutchison told Inverse. “Someone who was running from their past and a little bit checked out. Someone that she could pull back in, because she’s so driven. And so that character just started springing up from what that dynamic could be.”

"We think about things like making sure that Halbrand is internally consistent for Halbrand and for Sauron. If you go back and look at the decisions he’s making, you can read them for either character."

The Rings of Power refuses to confirm if the Stranger is Gandalf

Halbrand wasn’t the only new wrinkle The Rings of Power added to Tolkien’s legendarium. In the Second Age, Tolkien tells us that many rings of power were made, with the elves forging theirs last. But on the show, the elves make their rings first. Why the switch?

“So much of the season was about the elves and their journey, and Galadriel’s journey, and the fading [of Eregion],” Hutchison said. “So, we wanted to tie those rings into that story. It was about narrowing our focus down on them and having those rings cap off the season. Because we had to make rings. It felt like the climax of that arc, as opposed to trying to manage the timeline in a different way.”

And then there’s the Stranger, who is pretty clearly a wizard newly arrived on Middle-earth. The show heavily hinted that he is Gandalf in the final episode — he even says one of Gandalf’s lines from The Lord of the Rings — but stopped short of actually confirming anything. “So much of what we like to do is make references to the stories and books in the later age as things that are said early,” Hutchison said. “The idea of these things coming back in the Third Age and the story we know. So whoever the Stranger is, that saying is either one he says again, or it’s one he passes on. It just really anchors it in that world in a way that was appealing to us.”

Don’t expect any firm answers until The Rings of Power comes back, probably in 2024.

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