War comes to Middle-earth in new trailer for The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power

We're ramping up to the second season of The Rings of Power, Amazon's fabulously expensive Lord of the Rings prequel show set during the Second Age of Middle-earth, thousands of years before the likes of Frodo and Aragorn were born. In the first season, Sauron (Charlie Vickers) made inroads among the elves and men of Middle-earth by disguising himself as a mortal man named Halbrand, but was exposed as the budding dark lord he was by Galadriel (Morfydd Clark), who rejected his offer to come rule the world with him. Now disguised as a godlike being named Annatar, Sauron is redoubling his plans to exert control over Middle-earth through the most insidious of means: crafting jewelry.

Specifically, he wants to make a number of magical rings and distribute them to the peoples of Middle-earth, and in doing so control them. In this end, he hits up the Elven smith Celebrimbor (Charles Edwards) who is going through it in the new trailer, which you can watch above. I've wondered how the show would explain how Celebrimbor is willing to work with Sauron despite his secret basically being out; him changing wigs shouldn't be enough to fool Celebrimbor. Based on the trailer, it looks like Celebrimbor is just open enough to Sauron's manipulations for him to let the dark lord in, and there's no turning back after that.

Speaking to Games Radar, Charlie Vickers talked about inhabiting this new disguise for Sauron. "I think everything had to come from a psychological throughline," he said. "The whole thing was based off the psychology that I developed for the character from the beginning so everything that existed within Halbrand, has to exist within Annatar. "

"I started off being like, 'Well he has to move completely differently, talk completely differently,' but the further we got through the process of developing it I realized they share a lot of things. The main thing is you know wanting to make rings, right? This idea that’s planted at the end of the first season – to heal Middle-earth."

Middle-earth has indeed been through a lot. Prior to the events of The Rings of Power, Sauron's old boss Morgoth held sway over the land, which was devastated in a huge conflict known as the War of Wrath. In J.R.R. Tolkien's mythology, it's said that Sauron's intentions to rebuild Middle-earth were at first good, but he slid back into evil over time. We see glimpses of a great battle in the trailer, one that's supposedly will last multiple episodes. This is likely the Battle of Eregion, an attack on the biggest Elven civilization in Middle-earth at the time. Clearly, Sauron isn't above bringing war to Middle-earth in the name of saving it, but how much will be left to save when he's done?

Mount Doom glimpsed in new ad for The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power season 2

In another ad for the second season of The Rings of Power, we see what looks like the fires of Mount Doom, where Sauron will famously craft the One Ring. Might we see that event transpire this season?

Finally, the trailer shows us a confrontation between Sauron and Galadriel, who didn't part on great terms last time. "I think they’re connected, if not by proximity then by their psyche," Vickers said of the link between the two characters. "They’re higher beings so I’m sure it runs deeper than being in the same place together. I think the fact that when she turns him down at the end of season one, it pisses him off quite a bit. I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t a part of him that thinks, 'I can get her, I can get to join me.'"

The second season of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power premieres on Amazon Prime Video on August 29.

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