THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE RINGS OF POWER Showrunner Explains Why Sauron Still Hasn't Made An Appearance

THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE RINGS OF POWER Showrunner Explains Why Sauron Still Hasn't Made An Appearance

Despite being a big part of the show's marketing campaign, The Rings of Power has yet to introduce Sauron. Now, co-showrunner Patrick McKay explains the secrecy surrounding the character...

By MarkCassidy - Oct 06, 2022 10:10 AM EST
Filed Under: Lord of the Rings
Source: Via SFF Gazette

For many Tolkien fans, one of the biggest selling points of a Lord of the Rings TV series was the prospect of exploring the character of Sauron in his "fair" Annatar form prior to the events of The Last Alliance. The shadow of The Dark Lord does hang heavy over The Rings of Power, but aside from a single silhouetted glimpse in flashback, we have yet to meet the saga's big bad.

Early teasers led fans to believe that one of the white-clad Mystics must be Sauron, and there's ongoing speculation that he might turn out to be the mysterious Stranger, the seemingly benevolent Halbrand, or simply a character that hasn't been introduced yet.

Of course, it's a very clever marketing tactic to keep fans guessing, and during an interview with THR, co-showrunner Patrick McKay explained the decision to have Sauron remain in the shadows for as long as possible.

"It would be very tempting to make the first season of this show The Sauron Show, very villain-centric,” he says. “But we wanted that level of evil and complexity of evil to emerge out of a world that you’re invested in — not because evil is threatening it immediately. We wanted you to fall in love again with Middle-earth. We wanted you to understand and relate to the struggles that each of these characters are having before we test them in a way they’ve never been tested before.”

This Friday's episode is titled "The Eye," and after the explosive events of last week's instalment, we'd say there's a decent chance the Evil One will finally make his presence felt. Then again, the big reveal could just as likely be saved for the finale!

Amazon Studios’ forthcoming series brings to screens for the very first time the heroic legends of the fabled Second Age of Middle-earth’s history. This epic drama is set thousands of years before the events of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, and will take viewers back to an era in which great powers were forged, kingdoms rose to glory and fell to ruin, unlikely heroes were tested, hope hung by the finest of threads, and the greatest villain that ever flowed from Tolkien’s pen threatened to cover all the world in darkness.

Beginning in a time of relative peace, the series follows an ensemble cast of characters, both familiar and new, as they confront the long-feared re-emergence of evil to Middle-earth. From the darkest depths of the Misty Mountains, to the majestic forests of the elf-capital of Lindon, to the breathtaking island kingdom of Númenor, to the furthest reaches of the map, these kingdoms and characters will carve out legacies that live on long after they are gone.

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power stars Morfydd Clark, Benjamin Walker, Charles Edwards, Charlie Vickers, Markella Kavenagh, Nazanin Boniadi, Ismael Cruz Cordova, Tyroe Muhafidin, Maxim Baldry, Cynthia Addai-Robinson, Owain Arthur, Trystan Gravelle, Sir Lenny Henry, Ema Horvath, Sophia Nomvete, Megan Richards, Dylan Smith, Leon Wadham, Daniel Weyman, and Sara Zwangobani.

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MaxPaint
MaxPaint - 10/6/2022, 10:10 AM
"to emerge out of a world that you’re invested in"

Like? the harfoots? The dumbmenorias? the emotionless achillean galadriel?
IronGenesis
IronGenesis - 10/6/2022, 10:16 AM
Just…
PLEASE!

Do
Not
Reveal Sauron on the final shot of season 1 and then cut to black with dramatic music!

Be better than that!
MarkCassidy
MarkCassidy - 10/6/2022, 10:20 AM
@IronGenesis - I have a feeling that's exactly what they'll do.
IronGenesis
IronGenesis - 10/6/2022, 10:29 AM
@RorMachine - 😱😱😱
thewanderer
thewanderer - 10/6/2022, 10:37 AM
@RorMachine - it sounds like we may be getting him tomorrow.
thewanderer
thewanderer - 10/6/2022, 10:38 AM
I think this is a smart move on their part.

Build the world and the characters, then give them adversity.

You're not invested if you give them adversity without establishing their characters first.
Origame
Origame - 10/6/2022, 10:39 AM
We know the REAL reason we haven't seen it yet.

Same reason it too nearly the entire season of she hulk to see daredevil.

They know that's like the main reason people watch the show so they keep the reveal until the end.
smgmayhem
smgmayhem - 10/6/2022, 11:36 AM
@Origame - See you love She Hulk so much you talk about it here too.
Origame
Origame - 10/6/2022, 11:39 AM
@smgmayhem - by that logic, everyone here must love morbius.
smgmayhem
smgmayhem - 10/6/2022, 12:04 PM
@Origame - Well they watched the hell out of it when it hit Netflix so yeah.
Origame
Origame - 10/6/2022, 1:13 PM
@smgmayhem - if that's the hill you wanna die on...
TyrantBossMedia
TyrantBossMedia - 10/6/2022, 12:01 PM
And The Trigger Man and Anti-Gun activist Alec Baldwin has settled with the family of Halyna Hutchins who he shot dead on the set of the movie "Rust".

She retains a producer credit and gets a cut of the profits from the movie which is most likely going to be a bust.

I TOLD YOU he would never be held accountable and Hollywood would get off another one of their law breakers.
For anybody else this would be at a minimum involuntary manslaughter, but for Baldwin it's a slap on the wrist.

I was right yet again.

https://pagesix.com/2022/10/05/alec-baldwin-settles-with-halyna-hutchins-family/
mountainman
mountainman - 10/6/2022, 12:21 PM
@TyrantBossMedia - Rich and connected people are never held accountable. That isn’t a shock. It’ll be interesting to see if he jumps back on the anti-gun propaganda though.
soberchimera
soberchimera - 10/6/2022, 12:27 PM
@TyrantBossMedia - The civil lawsuit has nothing to do with the District Attorney's criminal investigation which hasn't been resolved yet.
TyrantBossMedia
TyrantBossMedia - 10/6/2022, 1:30 PM
@mountainman - OH you can make book on that. Just like DiCaprio and others who preach environmentalism and fly around in their private jets.
TyrantBossMedia
TyrantBossMedia - 10/6/2022, 1:31 PM
@soberchimera - Being that he is back filming the movie you can pretty much guarantee that nothing is going to happen to him.
mountainman
mountainman - 10/6/2022, 2:02 PM
@TyrantBossMedia - Many books have been written on the subject.

Also, the late and great George Carlin had an amazing bit on this exact subject:

“But there’s a reason. There’s a reason. There’s a reason for this, there’s a reason education sucks, and it’s the same reason that it will never, ever, ever be fixed. It’s never gonna get any better. Don’t look for it. Be happy with what you got. Because the owners of this country don't want that. I'm talking about the real owners now, the real owners, the big wealthy business interests that control things and make all the important decisions. Forget the politicians. The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice. You don't. You have no choice. You have owners. They own you. They own everything. They own all the important land. They own and control the corporations. They’ve long since bought and paid for the senate, the congress, the state houses, the city halls, they got the judges in their back pockets and they own all the big media companies so they control just about all of the news and information you get to hear. They got you by the balls. They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying, lobbying, to get what they want. Well, we know what they want. They want more for themselves and less for everybody else, but I'll tell you what they don’t want: They don’t want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They don’t want well informed, well educated people capable of critical thinking. They’re not interested in that. That doesn’t help them. Thats against their interests. Thats right. They don’t want people who are smart enough to sit around a kitchen table to figure out how badly they’re getting [frick]ed by a system that threw them overboard 30 [frick]ing years ago. They don’t want that. You know what they want? They want obedient workers. Obedient workers. People who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork, and just dumb enough to passively accept all these increasingly shittier jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, the reduced benefits, the end of overtime and the vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it, and now they’re coming for your Social Security money. They want your retirement money. They want it back so they can give it to their criminal friends on Wall Street, and you know something? They’ll get it. They’ll get it all from you, sooner or later, 'cause they own this [frick]ing place. It's a big club, and you ain’t in it. You and I are not in the big club. And by the way, it's the same big club they use to beat you over the head with all day long when they tell you what to believe. All day long beating you over the head in their media telling you what to believe, what to think and what to buy. The table is tilted folks. The game is rigged, and nobody seems to notice, nobody seems to care. Good honest hard-working people -- white collar, blue collar, it doesn’t matter what color shirt you have on -- good honest hard-working people continue -- these are people of modest means -- continue to elect these rich cocksuckers who don’t give a [frick] about them. They don’t give a [frick] about you. They don’t give a [frick] about you. They don't care about you at all -- at all -- at all. And nobody seems to notice, nobody seems to care. That's what the owners count on; the fact that Americans will probably remain willfully ignorant of the big red, white and blue dick that's being jammed up their assholes everyday. Because the owners of this country know the truth: it's called the American Dream, because you have to be asleep to believe it.”
TyrantBossMedia
TyrantBossMedia - 10/6/2022, 2:18 PM
@mountainman - That is why the powers that be, the establishment worked together to bring down Trump and steal the election and the establishment Republicans refused to fight back.
The people should never be allowed to pick who they want unless the establishment tells them who their options are.
TheWinkler
TheWinkler - 10/6/2022, 3:53 PM
@TyrantBossMedia - We still out here crying like little snowflakes about Trump having an election "stolen"? You need a safe space, buddy?
mountainman
mountainman - 10/6/2022, 4:02 PM
@TheWinkler - The party that last in 2016 complained about that election being illegitimate and even cooked up a fake Russian collusion story that wasted a ton of taxpayer money for 3 years.

Here’s a montage of them doing it:
TheWinkler
TheWinkler - 10/6/2022, 4:39 PM
@mountainman - Don't come into a comment section quoting George Carlin and then start shilling for Republicans. The man hated Democrats and Liberals, but saved a special chunk of unadulterated hell for Republicans and every bit ass backwards politics and ideas they stand for.
mountainman
mountainman - 10/6/2022, 5:15 PM
@TheWinkler - I'm not shilling for Republicans. Never voted for a Republican or a Democrat in my life. I just like to call out hypocrisy. George Carlin would be disgusted with what has happened to the Democrat party in the last 15 years.

1) They are now the pro-war party
2) They are the bro corporation party
3) The pro big pharma party
4) The party of the rich
5) The party that disdains the working class

This doesn't mean Republicans are good. Just because the other person in this thread said something pro-Trump doesn't mean that I am.

Both major parties in the US are a bunch of fascists that are ruining the country. Anybody that voted for Biden voted for the person that has done more to harm black and brown communities than any other living politican has. He pushed Reagan to be harsher on the war on drugs. He was the author of the 1994 Tough on Crime Bill, which did more to cause overpolicing of inner cities than any other legislation in the last 50 years. He was the leading Democrat pushing for the war in Iraq, which saw the deaths of tens of thousands of innocent brown people in that country. He was vice president when the banks got bailed out in 09 and when the wars in Syria, Libya, Yemen, and Somolia were all started.

Don't tell me about political integrity. Modern democrats and modern republicans have none and if you support either you are the cause of the current destruction of the US that we are seeing.
TyrantBossMedia
TyrantBossMedia - 10/6/2022, 6:45 PM
@TheWinkler - That’s interesting. Your Hillary is STILL bitching about a stolen election in 2016 and I don’t see you upset about that even though it didn’t happen. But this time there is actual proof of the election being stolen.
You just don’t like the facts because they prove that crazy Uncle Joe was put in place by the establishment.
TheWinkler
TheWinkler - 10/17/2022, 10:25 AM
@TyrantBossMedia - "Your Hillary" as if being anti-Trump automatically means I must love the left.
soberchimera
soberchimera - 10/6/2022, 12:18 PM
I mean if you're putting "The Lord of the Rings" in the title of your show, then you are essentially calling your show "The Sauron Show".
DarthNihilus
DarthNihilus - 10/6/2022, 12:22 PM
Then call the show : ''Middle-Earth''

jbird18
jbird18 - 10/6/2022, 12:41 PM
Sauron is in it. He is the dude Galadriel is falling for.(Halbrand)
WarMonkey
WarMonkey - 10/6/2022, 12:47 PM
@jbird18 - I agree 100% it'll be Sexy Sauron. These are not good writers and I'm basing my prediction on that fact so it'll be some trite like Galadriel broke his heart or he didn't listen to her advice so broke bad. Basically Galadriel will be the reason for Sauron and since she's a she it'll because she's just too awesome and amazing for him.
AnthonyVonGeek
AnthonyVonGeek - 10/6/2022, 1:44 PM
I finally got around watching it I’m four episodes in and completely bored out of my mind. For a show that’s called rings of power where are the rings? It should’ve been called “Angry Karen Galadriels Quest”
And no one is smoking any longbottem leaf out of their pipes. This ain’t Tolkien….
And good job at making Galadriel my least favorite character.
ManofSteel79
ManofSteel79 - 10/6/2022, 1:55 PM
Wink!Wink!
McMurdo
McMurdo - 10/6/2022, 7:16 PM
Um Halbrand is revealed in episode 2. This is a red herring, this quote. The entire plot leaked months ago and it's been completely accurate 6 episodes in. He's revealed in episode 8
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