First footage of Game of Thrones veteran Ciarán Hinds in The Rings of Power

The second season of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power comes out next week, and Prime Video is sharing lots of footage to whet our appetites. For instance, here's Isildur (Maxim Baldry) and a new character named Estrid (Nia Towle) struggling to fight off a band of wild men, only to be rescued by the elf Arondir (Ismael Cruz Córdova):

Another clip is more of a mini-trailer, where we see the mysterious Stranger (Daniel Weyman) talk with Tom Bombadil (Rory Kinnear), a character from J.R.R. Tolkien's original Lord of the Rings books who is often left out of adaptations, but who shows up in this prequel series set thousands of years before the original story:

This clip also contains a snippet of footage of actor Ciarán Hinds, whom Game of Thrones fans may remember as wildling leader Mance Rayder, as a new character; we see him rising from a chair holding an elaborate staff. Multiple publications refer to him as a "dark wizard."

If that's the case, it will bring the number of unidentified wizards on the show to two. The Stranger is clearly a wizard, but the show has remained mum on which one. In Tolkienen lore, five wizards eventually make their way to Middle-earth: Gandalf and Saurman most people know. Then there's Radagast, the nature-loving wizard featured in Peter Jackson's The Hobbit movies. Then there's Alatar or Pallando, the "blue wizards" who go into the east. Almost nothing is known of their adventures.

Given that the Stranger is heading to the eastern land of Rhûn in The Rings of Power season 2, maybe he is one of these two lost blue wizards, and perhaps Hinds is playing the other. The details are being kept under wraps for now.

Morfydd Clark (Galadriel) talks defending Rings of Power cast members against racist attacks

In the meantime, teases continue apace. Above, actor Charlie Vickers contemplates the changing face of Sauron, whom we'll see in a flashback played by a different actor; apparently the flashback is set around 1,000 years before the main events of the story.

During its first season, while The Rings of Power found an audience, it also got a fair amount of criticism. Some of it was valid — you're free to think the show is bad if you didn't like it — but there were also a fair number of fans who were simply displeased that the show featured people of color. The cast responded with a joint statement condemning racism directed against the show, the people who work on it, and other fans:

“I’m really glad that we did that," star Morfydd Clark (Galadriel) told NME. I think it was really important for our castmates, but also I couldn’t really appreciate how much it would mean to so many people. “We all wrote the message together in different countries – being like, ‘I don’t think the comma’s in the right place.’ It was like, ‘Oh my god we’re never going to post this thing!’ And then eventually Ben Walker [who plays High King Gil-Galad] was just like, ‘I’ve posted it, go!’ And so we all went live… It was showing the best parts of the community.”

At the same time, Clark does find it difficult to "tune out" the attacks, but the cast is close enough that they can soldier through it. “Our cast’s really close and we’re as happy as our least happy castmate… some people need to be protected and picked up and that’s something that is just going to be ongoing.”

The second season of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power premieres on Prime Video on Thursday, August 29. The first three episodes will drop at once.

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