The Rings of Power season 2 will be ‘all about the villains’, the hit Prime Video show’s co-creators say
‘This time, Sauron’s agenda sets everything in motion’
The Rings of Power season two will explore a new “central relationship” between Sauron and one of the series’ extensive supporting cast of characters.
In quotes carried by the latest issue of Total Film magazine (via GamesRadar), the high-fantasy show’s co-showrunners J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay revealed that Galadriel won’t be the primary protagonist this time around. That honor will fall on Celebrimbor, the elven smith who had a small but major role in The Rings of Power’s first season. Indeed, the pair have teased that Celebrimbor will be “the principal protagonist” in season two, and that the dynamic between him and Sauron will be the “central relationship” that’s explored throughout its eight-episode run.
That’s not the only significant change we’ll see in one of the best Prime Video shows’ sophomore outings, either. Payne and McKay have also claimed that “season two is all about the villains”, which sets the stage for a much darker and, from a character perspective, life-threatening entry compared to its predecessor.
“This time, Sauron’s agenda sets everything in motion,” Payne and McKay said. “Adar and his army of orcs; Galadriel, Elrond, and Gil-galad and their armies of elves – all of which will come crashing together in the most ambitious battle our show has seen yet, a battle from which many big players may not make it out alive.”
Ringing the changes? Not as much
As you’ll no doubt remember from the Amazon TV show and/or J.R.R. Tolkien’s legendary The Lord of the Rings books, Celebrimbor helps Sauron to forge the titular rings. At the time of their creation, Sauron is disguised as an elf named Annatar (in the literature) and a human called Halbrand (in the TV adaptation), so Celebrimbor has no idea that he’s helping Middle-earth’s most notorious antagonist in his quest for world domination.
Unfortunately for Halbrand/Sauron, his true identity is revealed not long after the first three Rings of Power are made. Well, in the hit Prime Video show anyway – in Tolkien’s literary works, all of the rings (19, to be exact) are crafted before anyone realizes what’s going on. This was but one of many narrative deviations that The Rings of Power season one made from the source material; changes that some diehard Tolkienites were frustrated by.
