The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power featured many callbacks to those familiar with Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings movies. One of these was the appearance of three witches, who were vanquished by The Stranger in the season one finale in a fashion that was very reminiscent of the appearance of the Ringwraiths in Jackson’s trilogy when viewed within the veil of the One Ring. According to showrunners J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay, the visuals of the witches’ fate was like “riffing on the visual language” of Jackson’s Nazgûl. They told Vanity Fair:
PAYNE: “I think what you’re reading is, there are glimpses into the unseen world where the true form of something is revealed. You’re seeing what is underneath the form that they’ve been presenting. Were they defeated, or were they just temporarily vanquished? I think that’s a story point that people can be thinking about… That’s him seeing into the Unseen world. The ring takes you into that place where you can see the true form of things.”
MCKAY: “We’re riffing on the visual language of that. But also we like the idea that there are different forms of magic in Tolkien. The visual storytelling hopefully suggests that these witches are lesser conjurers than one of the wizards would be, and are bested here, but they escape in another form. Their true appearance in the world of the unseen is hideous and horrible and some kind of magic is making them beautiful. While the visual language is a little similar to the Nazgûl, we’re also thinking about Macbeth and we’re thinking about the old crones and the three witches and just trying to come up with something strange and weird. We know they come from Rhûn, and we know there are magic cults in Rhûn, which is one of the things Tolkien writes about. So maybe there’s a slightly different kind of magic and we can peel back the layers in future seasons.”
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Who is The Stranger in The Rings of Power?
The first season of The Rings of Power has laid the foundation for the Middle Earth story the series wants to tell, but there are many questions that have been left unanswered, including the mystery of who The Stranger actually is. Having crashed to Middle Earth in a ball of fire, The Stranger’s identity has been teased as a number of iconic characters from Tolkien’s stories. While the finale at one point suggested that he could be Sauron, many fans believe The Stranger is actually Gandalf. However, his identity is still very much to be revealed, and it is possible he could be another wizard of Middle Earth, Saruman.
The Rings of Power’s showrunners have previously commented that The Stranger’s identity is something that will be addressed in later seasons, but fans shouldn’t think they can join up all of the dots just yet. With the second season not expected to arrive on Prime Video for at least a couple of years, it is going to be a while before we find out more about this iteration of Tolkien’s Middle Earth saga. The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power season one is currently streaming on Prime Video.
