Summary

• Sauron's new actor in The Rings of Power season 2 sheds light on the character's complex history.
• Jack Lowden and Charlie Vickers play multiple forms of Sauron, revealing his deceptive nature.
• Adar's betrayal of Sauron and his gory murder will be explored in detail in the season.

This article contains potential spoilers for The Rings of Power season 2.

Sauron's true identity before finally revealing it, setting the scene for season 2 to show audiences Sauron's side of the story. In season 2, the audience will "start to see Sauron's journey - in the same way that [audiences] saw Galadriel's origins" in season 1 (via GQ).

The Rings of Power season 1 finale confirmed that one of the season's leading original characters, Halbrand, was actually Sauron, leaving season 2 to tell Sauron's tale with no holds barred. As trailers for season 2 made evident, Sauron will keep using his Halbrand form in season 2, while additionally using a blonde, Elvish form in his dealings with Celebrimbor. Both forms will be played by Charlie Vickers, allowing the audience to easily track Sauron's duplicitous moves. But a new clip released by Amazon Prime revealed Jack Lowden playing a third Sauron form, finally answering some unresolved season 1 questions.

Jack Lowden Playing Sauron Explains Why Adar Didn't Recognize Halbrand

Sauron Will Be Played By Jack Lowden And Charlie Vickers

Adar met Sauron (Halbrand) in The Rings of Power season 1 but didn't recognize him, despite their longstanding relationship, and the new clip of Jack Lowden explains why. Halbrand, the Stranger, and Adar were all implied to be Sauron at different points. Adar threw a curveball into the mystery box when he declared that, far from being Sauron, he had killed Sauron. Eventually, Galadriel discovered that Sauron lived and was, in fact, Halbrand. This put the Sauron mystery to bed but created another mystery - Adar's relationship with Sauron and his inability to recognize him.

...Adar hated and killed Sauron, as he said, but neither knew that his immortal spirit could form another body nor recognized the new one he had made and named Halbrand.

Adar must have known Sauron, or he couldn't have been an Orc commander, and he clearly hated Sauron, as the previous episode revealed. The new clip shows an interview with Lowden, plus Lowden's debut as Sauron in the first scene of season 2, set "about 1000 years before the first season," according to Lowden. In this scene, "Adar... stabs [Sauron] in the back" (via GamesRadar). This confirms that Adar hated and killed Sauron, as he said, but neither knew that his immortal spirit could form another body nor recognized the new one he had made and named Halbrand.

Adar Wasn't Lying When He Said He Split Sauron Open In Season 1

Adar Really Did Kill Sauron

The Rings of Power season 2 will explain Sauron's gory murder at the hands of Adar. The new clip released by Amazon Prime, showing Jack Lowden, confirms beyond any doubt that Adar wasn't lying when he said "I split him open... I killed Sauron" in season 1. Adar is obviously a genuine enemy of Sauron's, which makes sense considering he can be seen teaming up with Galadriel to defeat Sauron in season 2 in various promotional materials released by Amazon. This morally ambivalent Uruk is unique in The Lord of the Rings franchise, without breaking canon, presenting an intriguing premise.

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power season 2 will be released on August 29, 2024.

Showrunners Patrick McKay and J.D. Payne went into detail about the scene teased in Amazon's featurette when they spoke to GamesRadar. They described the scene, filling in the blanks of what is shown in the featurette, confirming that Sauron is "about to be crowned, pitching his vision of Middle-earth, and right before they lay the crown on his head, his right-hand man, Adar, turns it upside down, and stabs him in the back. It’s the assassination of Sauron." Showrunners compared this to the Ides of March - Julius Caesar's assassination, which highlights the depth of Adar's betrayal (via TV Insider).

The Rings Of Power Season 2 Will Show Sauron's Rebirth

Sauron's Shapeshifting May Happen On-Screen

It looks like The Rings of Power season 2 may show Sauron as he shapeshifts, in an unprecedented exploration of the canonical power attributed to Sauron in J.R.R. Tolkien's work. Adar killing Sauron in the first scene of The Rings of Power season 2 will naturally necessitate Sauron forming himself a new body. This isn't the only physical change he will endure in season 2 - Sauron will also have to shift from his Halbrand form to his Annatar form. Amazon released another featurette that may be showing one of these transformations taking place.

The featurette shows the black ooze familiar from a previous Rings of Power season 2 trailer starting to take a humanoid shape. It is transposed over a voiceover describing Sauron's return in a new form - a voiceover by Sauron himself, no less, in his Halbrand form, teasing yet more trickery from the master of deception. The implication is that this black goo is Sauron taking shape. In Tolkien's work, Sauron could form a new body from scratch, as a spirit being, after his old body was killed.

The Lay of Leithian can be found in The Lays of Beleriand by J.R.R. Tolkien, published posthumously in 1985.

In The Lay of Leithian, which constituted an early draft of Tolkien's published work, Sauron shapeshifted fluidly "from wolf to worm, from monster to his own demon form." Tolkien never went into any detail about how Sauron shapeshifted or what it looked like, he just said that Sauron could do it. This leaves the physical process itself open to interpretation, and it looks like The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power season 2 may be the first adaptation to do that interpreting.

Sources: GQ, GamesRadar, TV Insider