The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power Characters Most Likely to Be Sauron

This post contains spoilers for The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. To see our thoughts on the episode, check out our review of “The Eye.”

In its penultimate episode, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power Season 1 introduces us to the land now known as Mordor. We also learn the fates of Bronwyn (Nazanin Boniadi), Theo (Tyroe Muhafidin), Galadriel (Morfydd Clark), Halbrand (Charlie Vickers), and Arondir (Ismael Cruz Córdova).

We also get some really lovely and ultimately quite shocking harfoot action as the wandering community continues its journey across Middle-earth. But even as all of that comes to pass, there’s one question we’re still left asking: who the heck is Sauron?! As we head towards the finale we are no closer to an answer. So we’re here to rank some of the most likely (and least likely) candidates before next week’s finale.

Definitely Not Sauron

Let’s start by just throwing out some names that are definitely not Sauron: all harfoots, Bronwyn, Arondir, Theo, Galadriel, both Durins, Elrond (Robert Aramayo), High King Gil-Galad (Benjamin Walker), pretty much all of the surviving Southlanders, Elendil (Lloyd Owen), Queen Regent Miriel (Cynthia Addai-Robinson), and the rest of the Numenorians. Sure, it might seem silly to say this, but we’re seven episodes in so we’ve got to start making some concrete statements about these possibilities either way! And we are saying the above are absolutely, unequivically, not Sauron.

7. The Ascetic

This week gave us more time with the mysterious hooded figures that we first saw in Episode 5. While it now seems unlikely that any of them are Sauron, we have to include all three as potentials seeing as we absolutely know they’re evil. Though we originally saw them seeking out the Stranger — and many fans assumed that the Dweller (Bridie Sisson) was Sauron in the trailers — we weren’t positive that they were evil until Episode 7. How do we know that? Well, that’s thanks to the fact that they casually burned all of the harfoots’ carriages after Nori tried to direct them to the Stranger. Though, it wasn’t The Ascetic who actually did the burning, so she’s low on our Sauron list.

6. The Nomad

With her cool helmet and strange powers, the Nomad is another member of the traveling hooded trio. She slightly edges out the Ascetic thanks to her helmet which looks like it took some serious forging to create and we all know Sauron loves to forge. Again, this seems quite unlikely. But we know that Sauron changes shape in order to manipulate those around him, so why couldn’t he turn into a woman to do that? It’s more reasonable to imagine that these three powerful witches could be a cult dedicated to dark arts, perhaps seeking out the Stranger because they believe him to be Sauron or Morgoth reborn.

There is precedent for cults in Tolkein’s world, but as the trio comes from Rhûn, there’s also a chance they could be a reimagining of Tolkien’s Blue Wizards. If that’s the case, their quest to take down the Stranger would heavily suggest he is Sauron as they were sent to contest him in the Second Age. 

5. Adar

Before we get there, though, let’s talk about Adar. Joseph Mawle’s original villain had long been a fan favorite for a potential Sauron, but after the epic events of Episode 6 that possibility seemed like it had all but burnt out… or has it? In that brutal chapter, Adar claimed that he had killed Sauron, “splitting him in two” because of the evil figure’s treatment of the Uruk. But let’s be real, if you were Sauron wouldn’t you just lie and pretend to be dead too? It would be a wicked echo of Adar’s battle plan against the Southlanders: lure them in with a false sense of security and victory, and then commit your true attack. So Adar is still a contender, potentially Sauron in disguise, tricking the world into believing he died. It could be an interesting inversion of the book canon where Sauron claimed first to be an emissary of Morgoth and then Morgoth himself. 

4. Someone We Haven’t Met Yet

Sure, we have almost too many good candidates for this to seem true, but we think it’s worth mentioning. Seeing as Celebrimbor (Charles Edwards) is already seeking out Mithril, then there’s a chance he’s already met Sauron in his Annatar guise and is currently being manipulated. That opens up the very real possibility that Sauron is out there and we have no idea who he is. We’re hoping if this is the case then we’ll still find out in the Season 1 finale. 

3. The Dweller 

We still think that the trio of witches is most likely a cult of some kind or potentially those aforementioned Blue Wizards, but we’re keeping the Dweller high on our list after this week. After the kind hearted harfoot Nori sought out the trio in order to send them in the direction of the Stranger — not the smartest choice, but harfoots are not suspicious creatures — we saw the Dweller take the fire that Largo Brandyfoot (Dylan Smith) attempted to ward them off with, freeze it, and then reignite it to burn down the harfoot encampment. That was some decidedly evil behavior. Also, if we’re talking aesthetics then the Dweller is definitely the most Sauron looking among the trio. So even though we think that the trio is likely followers of Morgoth or Sauron or hunting them down rather than actually them, we still think the Dweller could be the big bad. 

2. The Stranger

Ah, the original Sauron contender back again! From the moment he fell from the sky in a flaming meteorite that looked a lot like the Eye of Sauron when it split open, the question of whether or not the Stranger is Sauron has been a popular one. Over the episodes, though, the Rings of Power creative team has spent a lot of time trying to make fans believe he’s Gandalf (despite not having rights to the character). His affinity to nature and deep connection to the harfoots would seem to fit into the famed wizard’s future as we know it. That would be quite a lovely turn up for the books, but seeing as the trio of evil-ish hooded figures are after him, he’s zoomed back up our Sauron list. If he is not the most wanted man in Rings of Power, there’s a possibility he’s still a wizard. Though, wizards as we know them in Tolkien canon do not come to Middle-earth until the Third Age, making the presence of one a scary legal issue for Prime Video unless there are deal details we dont’t know yet.

1. Halbrand 

Galadriel’s unexpected companion has really been through it. Mysteriously shipwrecked at sea, losing all his companions to a giant monster worm; being imprisoned in Numenor both physically and metaphorically; and being forced back to the place he promised he would “never go back to” where his entire family was massacred apparently by Adar. It’s a tragic origin for such a handsome and charming new addition to the Lord of the Rings canon. But if we look closer there is another version of this man and his story. Halbrand got over the deaths of his shipwrecked companions rather quickly, easily switched on the violence after stealing from the craftsmen, and, Like Sauron, has quite the penchant for a forge.

But it’s the events of Episode 6 that really start to point to Halbrand. When he confronts Adar, the Uruk’s leader insists he doesn’t know him. This reads as the ultimate cruelty, one to be expected from someone so nefarious. But then Adar asks Halbrand who he is again later on in the episode in a moment that reads as genuine curiousity. Shortly after, Halbrand responds to Bronwyn’s question in the most suspicious way possible.

It would be extremely cruel if it was Galadriel who led Sauron to the Southlands and the creation of Mordor after her millennia long quest to destroy him, but there’s currently a not insignificant amount of evidence pointing to that being the case.