The Rings of Power hinted at the Stranger's name and I didn't even notice

The Rings of Power is a Lord of the Rings prequel show set thousands of years before the likes of Frodo or Sam were born. And yet there are still characters from the original trilogy in this prequel. Characters like Elrond and Galadriel are immortal, and they were very much around during the Second Age of Middle-earth.

And then there's the Stranger, a mysterious amnesiac who fell out of the sky in the first season and who is now traveling to the desert land of Rhûn with Nori and Poppy, his harfoot companions. The Stranger doesn't know who he is and neither do we, but the show has been dropping some big hints. To start, he's an old man in grey clothing who appears to have magic powers. This definitely recalls Gandalf from The Lord of the Rings. At the end of the first season, the Stranger even paraphrased one of Gandalf's iconic lines: "When in doubt, Elanor Brandyfoot, always follow your nose."

The hints are so obvious that I don't even feel the need to include a spoiler warning. At this point, if the Stranger doesn't end up being Gandalf, it will feel misleading. And the first three episodes of The Rings of Power season 2, available to stream now on Prime Video, offered up another clue.

The Rings of Power gave us yet another clue that the Stranger is Gandalf

Mashable did some great linguistic digging on this one. So in the second episode of the new season, "Where the Stars are Strange," Poppy wonders why the Stranger, as a wizard, can't just magically create food and water for them, those things being hard to find in a desert. Nori replies that he needs a stick or staff to properly work his magic, saying that "he's afraid he'd lose control again without a gand."

A "gand" is a word derived from the Old Norse term "gandr," which means "staff," "wand" or "magic." It's also the first part of Gandalf's name. DO YOU SEE WHERE THIS IS GOING?

The Lord of the Rings author J.R.R. Tolkien was himself a professional philologist, one who studies the history of language, so he knew what he was doing when he named his characters. He borrowed the name Gandalf from a section of the Norse poem Völuspá titled "Catalogue of Dwarves." One of the dwarves in that poem was named Gandálfr, a combination of the words "gandr," which we already discussed; and "álfr," which means "elf." So the name Gandalf literally translates to "elf with a wand." In his book Unfinished Tales, Tolkien translated it as "Elf of the Wand," so close enough.

And there are more layers beyond that. "Gandalf" isn't the character's true name, but the one that men give him. Basically, they see this old magic guy with a staff, wrongly assume he's an elf, and start calling him Gandalf. And Gandalf rolls with it because that's the kind of easygoing guy he is. The elves call him Mithrandir. In reality, Gandalf is a divine being sent from the sacred land of Aman across the sea to aid the people of Middle-earth in their battle against Sauron. His original name, as revealed in books like The Silmarillion, is Olórin.

But I don't know if The Rings of Power will get into any of that. Frankly, I'm ready for them to dispense with the mystery and tell us just who the Stranger is. New episodes drop Thursdays on Prime Video.

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