Is the Stranger Gandalf? The Rings of Power showrunner dances around the inevitable

The first season of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power introduced a mysterious character known only as the Stranger (Daniel Weyman), a magical being who recalls wizard characters from the original series like Gandalf and Saruman. In fact, the show is referencing Gandalf in a way that seems pretty blatant. Towards the end of the season, the Stranger says, "When in doubt, always follow your nose," a famous Gandalf line. But the showrunners are maintaining that we can't know for certain.

""[W]e try to make it delightful in that there are several possibilities of what that can end up meaning," co-showrunner JD Payne told Collider. "Could that mean that The Stranger is Gandalf and that he says that, then he says it later on? It could definitely mean that. Could it also mean that The Stranger is Saruman, and you realize that later on Saruman said that to Gandalf and then Gandalf said it. You know what I mean? There are always ways you can sort of like pinball it. There could be delightful paths that could come out of either eventuality. So, we like to keep those doors open. It's fun to engage with the story and think of the possibilities."

Yeah, it's fun in theory, but in the case of the Stranger, they're leaving so many "this is probably Gandalf" bread crumbs that if he turns out to be anyone other than Gandalf it will probably feel like they misled the audience. And if it is Gandalf, it will feel very obvious. I feel like they wrote themselves into a bit of a corner here by making this a "mystery." The Stranger, after all, doesn't know who he is, so we have to find out as he does.

"[T]he wizard is on a journey of self-discovery," Payne said. "He learned a couple of key things about himself at the end of Season 1. He learned that he's an Istari and learned that he has a destiny in the east to go and seek out. So now we are on that journey of self-discovery with him, where he’s learning how to control his powers. We saw him gain some footholds in Season 1, but we also saw him mess it up a lot in Season 1, and that will continue. For us, it's really delicious to watch a character who could eventually become one of great power not yet be there and then have to figure out what mistakes they're gonna make along the way."

The show has been dinged for straying very far from the story of the Second Age of Middle-earth as set out by J.R.R. Tolkien in his book The Silmarillion. Neither Gandalf nor Saruman nor any wizard shows up in that section, but co-showrunner Patrick McKay felt that they needed "all the ingredients" for this Lord of the Rings prequel show. "We felt like a Lord of the Rings show without a wizard who felt the things that wizards in Lord of the Rings make you feel would just feel like it's missing the point." I'll leave it to the fans to decide whether he's on the right track or not.

The Stranger and Nori are off to Rhûn in The Rings of Power season 2

In the second season of the show, which is due out in August, will see the Stranger and his harfoot companion Nori (Markella Kavenaugh) travel to the land of Rhûn, a place that's on Tolkien's maps of Middle-earth but which we've never actually visited in his books. McKay is excited about the possibilities:

"We've never seen deserts on screen in Middle-earth, and we're really excited to go there. We think deserts are beautiful and awesome and we're doing our own Tolkienien Lawrence of Arabia. One of the things that's been fun about that is Rhûn is really a blank canvas. There are little hints. There's talk about magic cults, and talk about the stars being strange, and rumors of wizards having adventures in Rhûn that may or may not have gone well. We're drawing on all of those seeds to hopefully continue to tell a story that feels worthy of the other canonical stories in here. It's been really fun trying to imagine that world, what the people in it are like, what the architecture is like, what kind of a desert. We just spent five weeks shooting in a far-flung overseas location for spectacular vistas, and it's really cool."

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power season 2 will premiere on Amazon Prime Video on August 29.

To stay up to date on everything fantasy, science fiction, and WiC, follow our all-encompassing Facebook page and Twitter account, sign up for our exclusive newsletter and check out our YouTube channel.