Highlights
- Ciarán Hinds will play a Dark Wizard in Season 2 of Prime Video’s The Lord of The Rings: The Rings of Power.
- The Harfoot Nori and the mysterious Stranger will encounter him in the Eastern land of Rhun.
- The identity of the Dark Wizard is unknown, but theories abound.
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Wizard Revealed
The Season 2 premiere of Prime Video’s The Lord of The Rings: The Rings of Power is a week away and the streamer has finally revealed the role that will be played by Irish actor Ciarán Hinds (Belfast, Game of Thrones, The Terror).
It was announced that Hinds would join the cast back in March along with Rory Kinnear (Penny Dreadful, Black Mirror, Skyfall). Then we learned that Kinnear would play Tom Bombadil, but the studio kept Hinds role under wraps. Well according to Deadline we now know that he will portray “A dark and powerful wizard, whose origins and intentions are shrouded in secrecy, and who has a legion of magic-wielding acolytes who obey his every command — among them the three travelers who sought out the Stranger at the end of Season 1… on the Dark Wizard’s orders.”
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Eastern Promises
There’s very little doubt that this unnamed (for now) wizard will hail from the land of Rhun in the East of Middle Earth. After all, Rhun was the destination of the Harfoot Nori (Markella Kavenagh) and the mysterious and magical Stranger (Daniel Weyman) when they set out from the West at the end of Season 1. They head there in hopes of discovering The Stranger’s true identity, though there’s every indication he is Gandalf.
The Stranger chose the direction of their path saying, “It smells sweet”. But from the looks of this picture and the fact that the Dark Wizard is connected to the three scary witches (aka The Acolytes) who came for The Stranger in The Rings of Power Season 1, the sweetness likely will fade. But who is this new wizard? There’s plenty of speculation and we are here to join the fun! So let’s talk Istari!
The Blue Two
According to Tolkien’s writings, there were five Maiar (angelic beings) sent by the Valar (Gods and Goddesses) to Middle Earth to aid in defeating Sauron. Sauron is himself a very powerful Maiar who was the chief servant of Dark Lord Morgoth.
These five were called Istari or The Order of Guardians and three of them we have met on screen. There’s Gandalf, whom we all know and love. As well as Saruman, the wizard who sold out to Sauron, and Radagast, the brown wizard we met in Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit films. The other two Istari are a little more mysterious.
Tolkien collectively called the other two The Blue Wizards (as that was their favorite choice of wardrobe color) and says that they were sent to the Far East and South of Middle Earth. Tolkien gave them various names: Alatar and Pallando in earlier writing and then later, Morinehtar and Rómestámo. Morinehtar means “Darkness Slayer” in the Elvish language Quenya and Rómestámo means “East-Helper”. So could this Dark Wizard be Rómestámo? If so, this will be the first time this character has been fully dramatized on the page or on screen.
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Heels or Faces
One thing we know is that The Blue Wizards never returned to the West from those distant lands. In some writings Tolkien indicated that they failed at their mission and succumbed to Sauron’s evil, forming magical cults with… yep… Acolytes to do their bidding. Yet in his later life, it seemed Tolkien had decided on another narrative for these lost wizards, indicating that they had ultimately aided in dampening Sauron’s power in the South and East which helped keep that threat to a minimum in the later battles of The Lord of The Rings. Does this indicate that the Dark Wizard could start as a heel and then do a “face-turn” down the line?
It’s all speculation right now. We’ll have to wait for Season 2 to start getting some clues to these questions. Mercifully, that’s only a week away!
The Lord of The Rings: The Rings of Power premieres August 29th on Prime Video. Do you have theories about The Dark Wizard? Don’t hesitate to share them in the comments!
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