The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power‘s Season 1 finale featured an explosive reveal: Halbrand (Charlie Vickers), the mysterious drifter and companion of Galadriel (Morfydd Clark) turns out to be Sauron, Middle-earth’s most dangerous villain. While some viewers were shocked at the reveal, more eagle-eyed viewers were not so easily misled. The producers foreshadowed that Halbrand wasn’t who he claimed to be — or rather, let everyone think he was — throughout the entire season in moments that only be appreciated upon repeat viewings.
Though the reveal that Halbrand was really Sauron all along was a serious break with established The Lord of the Rings canon, the finale episode, “Alloyed,” called into question Halbrand’s behavior throughout the entire season. The producers were creative in hiding Halbrand’s true identity until the very end, especially considering that The Stranger in the Harfoot storyline could have also been Sauron. But looking back at Halbrand’s scenes reveals an abundance of clues hinting at his true, villainous nature as the Dark Lord.
Updated on September 3, 2024, by Ajay Aravind: Consisting of 8 episodes, Season 2 of The Rings of Power is slated for release between August 29 and October 3, 2024. The fact that Halbrand is Sauron was only disclosed in the Season 1 finale, allowing fans enough time to discuss the possibilities and ramifications of the reveal. Now that Halbrand/Sauron is on his way to Mordor, the fandom is hoping to see how he brings it under his command. Given how many clues were dropped regarding Halbrand’s identity, we have updated this article with some more relevant information.
15 Halbrand’s Establishing Shot Conjures Memories Of The Dark Lord
The First Shot Of Halbrand Is Reminiscent Of The Eye Of Sauron
With Halbrand’s first scene in Rings of Power, “Adrift” director JA Bayona hints at the form most LOTR fans associate with Sauron: the singular, all-seeing eye that makes its presence known through malevolent intent. When Galadriel calls to the abandoned raft that Halbrand and his companions are on during the series premiere, he turns over his shoulder while showing only one eye to the camera.
It’s a small clue, but a clever one that frames him as Sauron from the start, though most fans may not notice it on their first watch. Halbrand told audiences exactly who he was from his very first shot, even if no one realized it at the time. Although this clue is a little too ambiguous and can be interpreted in other ways, it makes sense to match Sauron with his iconic singular eye.
14 Halbrand and Galadriel’s First Words Are An Early Clue
Halbrand Hints That He Is In Tune to the Tides of Fate
Halbrand’s first scene includes another early clue that he is Sauron. As they pull Galadriel to the raft, he tells her that “[t]he tides of fate are flowing. Yours might be heading in, or out.” This is exactly what longtime LOTR fans know Galadriel said to Frodo in The Fellowship of the Ring.
Much like how Galadriel sensed changes in Middle-earth when Frodo wears the Ring, Sauron sensed a change in his own future when meeting Galadriel. Both characters have a propensity to sense certain things about the future, which isn’t unusual for beings as powerful as they are. However, a simple man like Halbrand would have no reason to say something like this, even if he claims to be the long-lost heir to the Southlands.
13 Halbrand Tried To Convince Galadriel To Exploit Fear
Nearly Every Tyrant Relies On Fear To Control Others
Fear has always been a tool used by tyrants, both in real life and in fiction. Morgoth, Sauron’s master and the one true Dark Lord of Middle-earth, constantly exploited this emotion. Even Sauron himself would employ fear as a manipulation tactic throughout his on-again off-again attempts at controlling the world. Furthermore, the Season 2 premiere of Rings of Power shows that the orcs were terrorized by Sauron and were clearly afraid of him.
In Season 1, Halbrand offers Galadriel a suggestion straight out of the mouths of tyrants. He claims that she must “identify what [her] opponent most fears,” because offering them “a means of mastering it” would allow Galadriel to “master them.” If that’s not believable enough, the fact that Halbrand uses violence against enemies without a shred of remorse strengthens the argument.
12 Halbrand Was a Fan of False First Impressions
Halbrand Hints At Being a Shapeshifter
When Halbrand’s companions on the raft debate whether to let Galadriel stay with them, Halbrand point-blank says that “looks can be deceiving” when one of them asks if the Elf looks dangerous to him. As it would turn out, Halbrand’s human appearance and grifting nature would be an apt cover for fooling not just Númenor into trusting him with an army, but Galadriel into loving him as well.
“Looks can be deceiving” is a line that should raise alarm bells for any viewer with any experience in plot twists and shocking reveals. It should be no surprise that the character who utters such words would turn out to be an infamous shapeshifter known for deceiving others into trusting him. Even now that Sauron has revealed himself, it will remain difficult to track him down as he continues to take on many different guises to deceive the inhabitants of Middle-earth.
11 Gil-galad’s Hesitance Predicted Galadriel’s Failure
Gil-Galad Knew That Galadriel Could Bring About The End Of The World
When deciding to send Galadriel to the Undying Lands of Valinor instead of allowing her to continue tracking the Orcs, the mighty Elven King Gil-galad expresses fear to Elrond over his vision of her and Middle-earth’s future. He tells Elrond: “We foresaw that if it had, she might have inadvertently kept alive the very evil she sought to defeat. For the same wind that seeks to blow out a fire may also cause its spread.”
Gil-Galad’s reservations about Galadriel’s mission turned out to be right in the end. Ultimately, Galadriel brought Sauron right into Elven company and to Middle-earth, protecting the very evil that she had so desperately tried to destroy. She would spend the rest of the Second Age (and nearly all the Third) seeking to undo this mistake that could have been avoided had she listened to Gil-galad in the first place.
10 Halbrand Was Never a Hero
Galadriel Assumes Halbrand’s Heroism Rather Than Proving It
As Halbrand points out to Galadriel in “Adar,” he’s not the hero she seeks. In “Adrift,” he leaves his companions on the raft to die, instead choosing to save his own skin (and Galadriel) from the seaworm. Halbrand is annoyingly cryptic and refuses to take on responsibility, even at Galadriel’s urging, which should have been a major red flag both for the Elf and for viewers watching from home.
Halbrand does not deny his heroism out of bashful humility, though. He knows that as Sauron, he’s not the hero she wants him to be for the Southlands — not when his plans are better served by scorching the region into Mordor. Halbrand was never a hero, nor did he ever claim to be. Instead, he proved to be a terrible villain planning to bring the Southlands, and all of Middle-earth, under his nefarious rule.
9 Halbrand Obviously Wants the Southlands
The Southlands are Historically Known as Mordor in Middle-Earth
Part of Halbrand’s manipulation of Galadriel involved exploiting her need for revenge and power by creating a sob story about his home in the Southlands being razed by Orcs. As it comes to pass, Sauron needs the Southlands in his master plan to take over Middle-earth, allegedly to make it a paradise where he’s their king and Galadriel is his queen.
From the very first day they met, Sauron pushed Galadriel towards getting him an army and getting him to the Southlands. Calling himself the rightful king of the Southlands should have been a surefire indicator that Halbrand was Sauron from the start, even if some, including Galadriel herself, didn’t want to see it. Interestingly, the first three episodes of Season 2 reveal that several important characters still haven’t realized Sauron’s true nature, including Celebrimbor and Adar.
8 Halbrand Never Lies to Galadriel
Halbrand Is Deliberately Vague About His Past
Halbrand/Sauron actor Charlie Vickers has made it clear in interviews that Halbrand doesn’t tell a single lie in Season 1 of Rings of Power. This is seen most prominently in the jail scene when Galadriel insists that Halbrand is the long-lost King of the Southlands, finally revealing his supposed backstory. While fans may dismiss this backstory as a complete lie, nothing that Halbrand says in this scene is technically false.
What makes the scene even juicier is when Halbrand says the former king was allied to Morgoth, the way Sauron himself was once allied to Morgoth as his most trusted adviser and lieutenant. Further, Halbrand never tells Galadriel he wants an army outright or that he is the heir. On the contrary, he lets Galadriel lead herself to those conclusions and follows along with whatever she says, giving her the illusion of control while he’s pulling all the strings.
7 Halbrand References Sauron’s Many Names
Sauron Is Known By Many Names, Including Mairon And Annatar
While living in Númenor, Halbrand is stopped by some guild workers and asked if he was the human who sailed in with the Elf. They ask what his name is, and Halbrand says “it depends on how close we are.” This would be a strange thing to say for anyone, except of course, a Dark Lord who goes by many names and rarely lets anyone know who he truly is.
Sauron’s Many Names
- Mairon
- Annatar
- Artano
- Aulendil
- Gorthaur
- Zigûr
- The Necromancer
Sauron goes by many names throughout the Ages in The Silmarillion, including Gorthaur, Artano, and (most famously) his “original” name Mairon — which means “beloved.” That said, Sauron itself is more of a derogatory name, as it comes from an Elvish word meaning “abhorred.” Though a throwaway line on the surface that makes Halbrand seem evasive as always, it reflects his fondness for shifting identities. As of Season 2, he has donned the princely guise of Annatar: the Lord of Gifts.
6 Halbrand’s Name Itself Could Be A Hint
Middle-earth Etymology Often Offers Hidden Clues
Names play a seminal role in the extensive folklore of Middle-earth. Many important characters have multiple names, including Gandalf, Aragorn, and Galadriel. Since Halbrand’s character doesn’t exist in Tolkien’s mythos and was created entirely for Rings of Power, some fans suspected that his name might actually mean something. While the showrunners haven’t offered a translation of Halbrand, the word can be read as a combination of two Elvish language words.
The word “Hall” in Noldorin Elvish could mean “great,” “powerful,” or “lofty.” Meanwhile the word “Brand” is known in Sindarin Elvish to mean “towering” or “noble.” At the same time, “Brand” could also mean “torch” in terms of Old English. Given that Sauron is quite arrogant, it doesn’t seem like too much of a stretch to picture him giving himself a rather pretentious name.
5 Adar’s Weapon Switch Is A Massive Clue
Only Halbrand Could Have Switched Adar’s Sword
The weapon key to the explosion of Mount Doom, the Black Sword, could have also been switched by Halbrand in order to scourge the Southlands and transform it into Mordor. From the beginning, there were two swords: one inactive and another glowing with magic. However, the magical sword used by Waldreg to break the dam and flood Mount Doom’s volcanic channels was not in Adar’s possession; it had to have been switched.
It couldn’t have been Galadriel since she had no incentive to burn the Southlands, leaving Halbrand as the one to do it and prime his return as Sauron. Halbrand essentially ensures the birth of Mordor without giving away his secret. In Season 2, he tricks Adar by hinting at Sauron’s existence, demonstrating that he could easily deceive his former lieutenant.
4 Many Fans Initially Believed The Stranger To Be Sauron
It Eventually Turned Out To Be A Classic Red Herring
Dedicated fans of Tolkien’s mythology would know that Gandalf and the other Istari reached Middle-earth after the first millennium of the Third Age. More importantly, he was already wearing his old-man disguise and had full control over his powers and memories. As such, fans were confused when they saw a bearded amnesiac man emerge from a burning meteorite, as this event never took place in the original story.
Given that Sauron had recently disappeared, however, it was easy to suspect the Stranger as the Dark Lord returned. All things considered, however, this drawn-out wait before the truth was probably meant to camouflage Sauron’s real identity, making the Stranger’s first season arc little more than a red herring for Halbrand’s shocking reveal.
3 Adar and Sauron’s History Sounded Alarm Bells
Halbrand Hints That He Has Met Adar Before
In The Rings of Power Season 1, Adar confesses that Sauron once killed many of his children back when he was Morgoth’s lieutenant, which led to him killing the Dark Lord in revenge. In “Udûn,” when Halbrand manages to capture Adar, he has him pinned to the ground with his spear and asks if Adar remembers his face, which should have raised some questions about their history.
It’s clear that this confrontation is personal for Halbrand, and that they have a history, but only after learning his true identity in the finale does it become clear why: Sauron wants revenge on Adar for killing him. It was Adar who is responsible for Sauron’s current state, now far less powerful than he was when he served Morgoth. Finally face-to-face with this old nemesis, Sauron lets his cool veneer slip and nearly reveals himself to Adar.
2 Halbrand’s Battle Scars Hint at a Deeper History
Halbrand May Have Faked His Injuries Fighting Adar
When Halbrand and Galadriel go to fight Adar and the Orcs in “Udûn,” Halbrand somehow becomes injured in the ensuing battle and Galadriel assumes he is dead. The audience is not shown him sustaining this injury, so Halbrand could very well have faked it in order to receive the Elvish healing he knows Galadriel will insist for him.
Either way, he uses this opportunity to get closer to Celebrimbor, whom he flatters and befriends in “Alloyed,” getting him access to the forges and the precious Mithril. This, of course, would be precisely what Sauron had planned all along as he worked toward the forging of the Rings of Power. This put him in the exact position he needed to be to finally forge his precious right under everyone’s noses.
1 Halbrand’s Blacksmith Past is a Major Red Flag
Sauron Needed a Blacksmith to Forge The Rings Of Power
When they arrive in Númenor, Halbrand shows great interest in settling and becoming a blacksmith there. This connects to Sauron’s eventual manufacture of the Rings of Power and the One Ring — not to mention his former life as Mairon, the disciple of Aulë the Worldsmith. Halbrand also suggests to Celebrimbor that the small gift of Mithril from the Dwarves should be used to make a trio of magical rings to heal the Elven people.
The latter detail in the finale, “Alloyed,” all but confirmed Halbrand’s real identity as Sauron, even before he told Galadriel. It isn’t long afterward that his true identity is officially revealed to the audience who, at this point, have put together the truth about Halbrand. The Deceiver had deceived everyone since the very beginning, and would continue to do so until the One Ring was cast into Mount Doom thousands of years later.