The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power is a fantasy series that continues the genre's tradition of having a sprawling cast of characters. From the Elves of Lindon to the Dwarves of Khazad-dûm, the Men of Númenor, and even some orcs with big personalities, there are always plenty of figures to keep track of as we chart our path through the Second Age of Tolkien's Middle-earth. Yet from the start, Galadriel (Morfydd Clark) has been at the center of it all, desperate to stop Sauron (Charlie Vickers) from gaining more power even when it was the farthest thing from the Dark Lord's mind.
Galadriel and Sauron first met in the show's second episode, when he pulled her to safety aboard his raft floating out in the middle of the sea. Back then, the Dark Lord went by the alias Halbrand. This time where Galadriel and "Halbrand" were allies laid the seeds for some romantic tension that still endures...which is a bit awkward, considering that Galadriel has a husband who's been missing since before the start of the show.
In season 3, we'll finally meet him. Celeborn is being played by Jamie Campbell Bower (Stranger Things), and from trailer released this month, it's clear that he's going to play a major role in The Rings of Power's third outing. But his return raises some serious questions, like where he's been all this time, and why now is the time that he's coming back into the picture.
Obviously, we won't know the answers for certain until we watch. But from the trailer and the way the show typically operates, we can certainly speculate.
What happens with Celeborn in J.R.R. Tolkien's books?
The first thing to understand about Celeborn is that we're truly in uncharted waters in The Rings of Power. Prime Video's television show draws on material that appears in the appendices for The Lord of the Rings, as well as a later portion of The Silmarillion. Celeborn and Galadriel appear there, but their story has a major difference: in the books, Celeborn never goes missing. After he and Galadriel marry in the First Age, Celeborn fights in a number of important battles, including the War of Wrath, where Sauron's boss Morgoth was defeated.
During the Second Age, Celeborn and Galadriel have a daughter, Celebrían, and live in several different elven strongholds around Middle-earth, like Lindon and Eregion. That all happens before Sauron rises to power. Afterward, Celeborn once more takes part in the war, including the Siege of Eregion. He is a seasoned warrior who faces the forces of darkness time and again, until eventually, in the Third Age once the threat of Sauron has seemingly been defeated, he and Galadriel settle in Lothlórien, where they one day meet Frodo Baggins.
When did Celeborn go missing in The Rings of Power?
All of that is very different from The Rings of Power, where Celeborn has been missing since the start of the series. He isn't even mentioned in the show until the penultimate episode of season 1, when the young human Theo (Tyroe Muhafidin) asks Galadriel if she's ever lost a loved one while the navigate the aftermath of the volcanic eruption that creates Mordor. Galadriel names two: her brother, Finrod, and her husband.
"Celeborn, was his name. We met in a glade of flowers. I was dancing and he saw me there...the war seemed so very far away then. When he went to it, I chided him. His armor didn't fit properly. I called him a silver clam. I never saw him again after that."Galadriel reminiscing about Celborn
The war, in this instance, is referring to the War of Wrath at the end of the First Age. So in The Rings of Power's continuity, Celeborn went off to fight in that fateful battle, and never returned. Galadriel assumes he's been dead for centuries.
The trailer for The Rings of Power season 3 includes a brief scene of Galadriel and Celeborn dancing surrounding by other Elves, which then cuts to a scene of them doing the same dance by themselves in the forest. The implication seems to be that we're going to get a brief flashback showing this first meeting Galadriel described, possibly as they rediscover their chemistry in the present.
Why is Celeborn returning now, and where has he been?
Season 3 will finally reunite these two lovers, bringing the show back in line with their romance as it's laid out in Tolkien's written works. But we're going to need answers about why Celeborn has been missing this whole time.
In the trailer, we see a few different shots of the Elf. In one, he's sparring with Galadriel by moonlight; in another, Celeborn tells Galadriel that he knows there's "something you fear to tell me." But the most notable of glimpse of all comes at the 1:11 mark, where we see what looks like Celeborn in a dimly lit cave, hoisted up by chains tied around his wrists. A figure in dark armor is the one pulling him into the air. That mysterious villain's hair is too long to be Sauron, but the garb would fit for one of his lieutenants, the Nazngagôl, who have more human aspects still at this point in the timeline before truly turning into wraiths as part of their transformation into Nazgûl.
We can only speculate at this point, but considering how long Celeborn has been gone, one potential possibility is that he's been a prisoner to the forces of darkness. My guess would be somewhere far to the east in Rhûn, considering that it's a part of the map we haven't spent a ton of time in yet but will be seeing more of this season, with the introduction of the warlord Khamûl the Easterling (Zubin Varla), another of Sauron's Ringwraiths.
If Celeborn was a prisoner, then the question becomes whether he escaped...or was released by Sauron as a way to mess with Galadriel even further. The show could feasibly go either way.
Or perhaps Celeborn was somewhere else entirely, surrounded by totally new story elements the show will only introduce now in season 3 that we couldn't even begin to guess at. We won't know for certain until The Rings of Power drops its first batch of episodes, but for right now, the possibilities seem to contain a hint of danger. Considering the sort of range actor Jamie Campbell Bower showed as Vecna a.k.a. One a.k.a. Henry Creel in Stranger Things, I wouldn't be at all surprised if we saw a few different sides of Celeborn this season, with his trials from his missing years leaving a dark mark of their own.
We'll most likely find out what happened to Celeborn on November 11, when The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power season 3 premieres its first four episodes on Prime Video.
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