One of the mysteries that J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay have set up for the first season of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power is the identity of the unnamed character who comets to Middle-earth near the encampment of the nomadic Harfoots. Known simply as “The Stranger” (Daniel Weyman) in marketing materials and credits, debates have raged in various fora about who this man-esque individual might be.
Man-esque, of course, because he can’t be a man. He’s also clearly not a dwarf, elf, orc, or Harfoot Hobbit, as they all have distinctive physical features that The Stranger does not exhibit. This leaves three possibilities:
- He’s a brand new character
- He’s one of the Istari or Wizards – i.e., Gandalf, Saruman, Radagast or the unnamed Blue Wizards.
- He’s another Maiar, such as Sauron or a Balrog (and if we’re opening up this door, might as well toss in Tom Bombadil and Ungoliant, as well)
Wafting the Chaff
We can’t really comment on a character we don’t know. If The Stranger is some wholesale creation of Payne and McKay, it would be pointless (and not much fun) to guess who that might be.
As for Balrogs, the descriptions we have of them from any text include imagery of darkness, smoke, and flame as part of their physical manifestation (LOTR II.v.329-30; S. 47). They are brutes associated with terror and domination. I find it extremely difficult to believe that anyone – especially Sauron – would send a Balrog to do deep, subtle undercover work.
The rest of this discussion will focus on the possibility that The Stranger is one of the Wizards or Sauron.
Colo(u)r
Let’s start with the obvious: The Stranger is very gray – or rather, grey. The name Mithrandir is Elvish for “Grey Pilgrim” (LOTR B.1085), which is a great way to describe a traveler from far away who wears grey, has grey hair and beard, and looks out of grey-blue eyes. (Gandalf’s eye color is not described in any writing, so far as I can tell.) Just on wardrobe and physical traits alone, Gandalf takes a strong lead.
The other Wizards are also associated with colors: Saruman the White, Radagast the Brown, and the Blue Wizards (though they are not called such in LOTR). Other than Mithrandir, none of the Wizards’ color associations are reflected in their Elvish names, meaning they could have adopted those associations sometime after their arrival and first encounter with the elves. However, the colors themselves seem to be associated with their divine authority, given Gandalf’s assertion that Saruman has “no colour now” right after declaring himself Gandalf the White (LOTR III.x.583).
Saruman’s hair and beard are described as “white, but strands of black still showed about his lips and ears” (LOTR III.x.578). The “still showed” is interesting, as it implies Saruman once had completely black hair, even though the Istari “were never young and aged only slowly.” Indeed, in Unfinished Tales — which I don’t plan on quoting much, given that the showrunners haven’t confirmed they have rights to use it — Saruman is described as having “raven” hair (UT 389). Sticking with the LOTR description, it’s plausible a thousands-of-years-younger Saruman would have entirely black hair. Saruman is also described as having “deep darkling eyes” and “dark solemn eyes” (LOTR III.x.578-9), which is counter to the light grey-blue eyes of The Stranger.
Radagast is an interesting dark horse in this discussion. Although associated with brown, during the Council of Elrond, Gandalf calls him a “master of shapes and changes of hue” (LOTR II.ii.257). But nothing more is said of his abilities in that regard, and it seems unlikely that “the honest Radagast” (II.ii.261) as Gandalf refers to him, would intentionally take on a grey vibe immediately upon arriving in Middle-earth.
There is not enough description of the Blue Wizards in any text to suggest The Stranger might be one of them. Likewise, we don’t have a good description of pre-LOTR Sauron, beyond that he was a shapeshifter and “put on a fair hue” (S. 285) to fool people into liking him.
Fire
If Gandalf takes the Colo(u)r round, Sauron probably takes the Fire round. My only comment here is that the balance tips in Sauron’s favor not because of his association with fire in LOTR or Tolkien’s legendarium at large — no such association exists — but because of the Peter Jackson films and lore introduced in The Rings of Power.
The first hint of a connection between The Stranger and Sauron is simultaneous with our first sight of The Stranger lying in the center of a crater caused by the comet’s impact. The scene looks strikingly similar to the portrayal of Sauron’s “flaming eye” in the Jackson films, with the primary difference being that the center is round rather than having a cat-like slit. Given the showrunners’ stated appreciation for visually linking scenes thematically to other films (a tendency I’ll mention again below), I cannot believe this is mere coincidence.
Another mark in favor of Sauron is that when Elanor “Nori” Brandyfoot (Markella Kavenagh) falls into the crater, she states that the fire isn’t hot. As we learned from Galadriel in Sauron’s abandoned stronghold in Forodwaith, the presence of evil can apparently suppress the heat of fire. This is possibly a callback to the fact that the One Ring is “quite cool” when Gandalf pulls it out of the fire in Bag End (I.ii.50), though there is no other association between evil and heatless fire in LOTR.
There may be one other connection between Sauron and fire, but it’s tenuous at best. When Nori looks at The Stranger’s writing, we see three clear GH runes. I had initially taken these for G runes, the same as Gandalf uses as his mark and signature (LOTR I.x.170, I.xi.187) but in thinking about the fire connections, it’s possible — not likely, in my opinion, but possible — that GH stands for ghâsh, the Orcish word for “fire” and a relic of the Black Speech, which Sauron created for use among his servants during the “Dark Years” of the Second Age (LOTR F.1131). That said, given that the runes for G and GH are mirror images of each other, it could be that The Stranger was meant to have written a G rune but the creators of the show got it wrong, like mixing up lowercase “b” and “d.” (This seems even more plausible given that Nori describes The Stranger’s writing as “loops and dots,” similar to Tengwar, when in fact they are clearly straight lines like the Angerthas Daeron.)
None of this takes away from the fact that Gandalf has a much stronger association with fire than Sauron. Gandalf’s full powers are unknown but among them were many fire-related abilities, including but not limited to the crafting of “particularly excellent fireworks” (AH 35) and setting pinecones alight with different-colored flames (AH 148-9) — not to mention putting “the fear of fire” on Gollum to get his story out of him (LOTR I.ii.57). When Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas happen upon Gandalf in Fangorn forest, he causes Aragorn’s sword to blaze “with a sudden fire” and makes Legolas’s arrow vanish “in a flash of flame” (III.v.494).
In addition to his fire abilities, Gandalf wields the Elven ring Narya, or the Ring of Fire (LOTR VI.ix.1030). Like the other Elven rings, Narya was primarily intended as a tool for preservation, and the “fire” aspect of the ring appears metaphorical: Círdan gives Narya to Gandalf to “rekindle hearts in a world that grows chill” (LOTR B.1085), something that, as Olórin, he also did in Valinor where he gave “fair visions or the promptings of wisdom” to the Elves (S 31).
The third connection of Gandalf to fire comes from his standoff with the Balrog of Moria. During the confrontation, Gandalf calls himself “a servant of the Secret Fire, wielder of the flame of Anor” (LOTR II.v.330). “Secret Fire,” also known as the “Flame Imperishable,” is not used again in LOTR, but references to it in the Silmarillion indicate it is something like creative power (S 15-16, 20, 25), which in a subcreative form could be interpreted as the ability to perform magic. One possible interpretation of the words The Stranger utters, “Mana Úrë,” is “Blessed Fire,” which could be a reference to the Sacred Fire. The “flame of Anor” refers to the sun, but it’s unclear what power wielding such a flame bestows — nevertheless, it is a flame that Gandalf wields.
Despite Gandalf’s clearer connection to fire in the books, I still think that Sauron has the stronger claim — based on fire-related connections alone — because The Rings of Power is in conversation with the Jackson trilogy. While I do believe the showrunners are fans of Tolkien’s writings, so much of the visual understanding of The Lord of the Rings today is based on the movies.
But there are other visual moments to consider, as well.
Aesthetic
Between The Stranger’s grey vibe and the fire imagery, I’ve already talked about aesthetic quite a bit, but there’s a little more to consider. There are two moments in particular that I believe move the needle closer to the likelihood of The Stranger being Gandalf than Sauron.
The first is when Nori runs up to The Stranger after seeing him awake and writing on a rock. Surprised, the stranger turns around and begins speaking unintelligibly. Above him, the sky darkens and the trees appear to loom over him. This visual effect is extremely similar to what happens in The Fellowship of the Ring film when at Bag End Gandalf tells Bilbo, “Do not take me for some conjurer of cheap tricks. I am not trying to rob you.” Although the words are changed, I always felt this was an apt interpretation of the parallel scene in the book: “He [Gandalf] took a step towards the hobbit, and he seemed to grow tall and menacing; his shadow filled the little room” (LOTR I.i.34). It is Gandalf the Dark Grey, intimidator rather than encourager, extinguisher rather than kindler; this is the Gandalf who put the fear of fire into Gollum. It could be argued that The Stranger, having not yet developed a sense of how to interact with the denizens of Middle-earth, is essentially a version of “Gandalf the Grey uncloaked.”
The second is a moment found only in the films. In The Fellowship of the Ring, while imprisoned atop Orthanc, Gandalf cups a moth in his hands and whispers something in its ear; the moth then flutters off and presumably gets word to an eagle, who then rescues Gandalf. (In the book, Gandalf tells Radagast to have his animal friends bring word of the Black Riders to him and Saruman; when Gwaihir shows up some time later, Gandalf convinces the eagle to carry him away [LOTR II.ii.257-9].) In Rings of Power, when Nori and Poppy (Megan Richards) come to The Stranger at night, he somehow induces Poppy to drop her lantern, which then breaks and releases the fireflies that had filled it. The Stranger cups several fireflies in a manner similar to Gandalf cupping the moth, and fireflies create a pattern that Nori interprets to be a constellation. The visual congruity here is rather striking, in my opinion.
Some have interpreted the firefly scene as an indication of The Stranger’s evil nature, because the fireflies die at the end. However, context matters. It’s clear that The Stranger is expending significant power and effort, and the fireflies fall as he faints from that exertion. One could interpret Gandalf’s power of encouragement and wisdom-giving as a type of empathy; if The Stranger is indeed Gandalf, he could be empathically linked to the fireflies while he is instructing them. After Poppy watches a firefly die in her hand, she and Nori look at The Stranger, who seems rather sad and pathetic, perhaps realizing that he caused the fireflies to die in order to help him.
All That Is Gold…
Another point to consider is The Stranger’s overall state of confusion and disorientation — literally, if he is looking for a particular constellation — upon arrival. We have one other explicit example of a similar experience in LOTR. When Gandalf returns to Middle-earth after his battle with the Balrog, he spends time in a fugue state:
Naked I was sent back – for a brief time, until my task is done. And naked I lay upon the mountain-top…There I lay staring upward, while the stars wheeled over, and each day was as long as a life-age of the earth. Faint to my ears came the gathered rumour of all lands: the springing and the dying, the song and the weeping, and the slow everlasting groan of over-burdened stone. (LOTR III.v.502)
A few days later, Gwaihir again found Gandalf and carried him to Lóthlorien, where he “tarried there in the ageless time of that land where days bring healing not decay” (LOTR III.v.503). According to the Tale of Years, Gandalf laid atop Zirakzigil “in a trance” for three days, and it was another two weeks before the three friends found him in Fangorn (LOTR B.1092-3). Assuming something similar is happening to The Stranger, it seems likely to believe that he is being his most true, authentic self at this time.
By the time of The Lord of the Rings, Sauron is unable to change his form, but in his heyday, he was a well-known shapechanger. At the time of Rings of Power, it’s certainly possible that he could look like The Stranger, but that begs the question: would he? It seems unlikely, given that all descriptions of Sauron in deceitful guise is that he is fair (or fair-seeming). There are many things that could be said about The Stranger’s appearance, but “fair” is not one of them.
To put it another way, if The Stranger were Sauron, he would almost certainly “seem fairer and feel fouler.”
Emissary of the Valar
Some arguments for The Stranger being Sauron have relied on a fragment published in Unfinished Tales where Tolkien writes that “Sauron posed as an emissary of the Valar, sent by them to Middle-earth (‘thus anticipating the Istari’)” (UT 237; cf. 253-4n7). Even ignoring that the showrunners have not confirmed they have the rights to Unfinished Tales and the fact that this appears within one of several conflicting versions of the story of Galadriel and Celeborn, it’s hard for me to believe that Tolkien imagined Sauron actually anticipated the Istari. This is almost certainly literary anticipation (i.e., foreshadowing) not Sauron sitting around and thinking, “Hmmm, I bet the Valar are going to send some Wizards to fight me.”
To the extent that Sauron might anticipate the Valar sending anyone to stand against him, it’s hard to believe he would interpret this as arriving obscurely and relying on Hobbits. If The Stranger is Sauron pretending to be a Valar emissary, for whom is he pretending? The Harfoots have no power, and earning their trust would not bring Sauron any closer to achieving his ultimate goal of domination. Sauron doesn’t even know about Hobbits in the Third Age; as Gandalf tells Frodo in Fellowship, “hitherto…[Sauron] has entirely overlooked the existence of hobbits” (LOTR I.ii.49). How would he know enough about them thousands of years earlier to incorporate them into some long-game deceit, when even the local Men think they’re fairy tales?
Sauron was only ever concerned with the domination of Men and Elves. The Hobbits are quite literally too far beneath him to notice. Gandalf, however, “is the only one who goes in for hobbit-lore” (LOTR I.ii.48). It’s a wonderful thought that the reason he does so is because of the kindness and courage he sees in them from the moment he arrives in Middle-earth. If this does turn out to be the case, it might be the most Tolkien-esque aspect of the entire show.
Comet Trajectory
The comet that brings The Stranger flies over Lindon — on the far west coast of Middle-earth — to the Harfoots’ current location in Rhovanion somewhere east of the Anduin (in what later becomes known as the Brown Lands). Given that trajectory, it’s hard to believe that the comet itself could have originated anywhere in Middle-earth, or even within Arda.
(I would add that there’s a congruity between the arrival of the comet interleaved with the departure of the elves into Valinor. Not that this means the comet has to have come from there, but the symmetry seems significant.)
Assuming the comet came from elsewhere, it’s hard to see how it could be Sauron. No text has Sauron leaving Middle-earth once he arrives in the First Age (unless you consider Númenor outside Middle-earth). Furthermore, the suggestion of Galadriel’s (Morfydd Clark) trek into Forodwaith is that Sauron is much further North — presumably in some new fortress similar to Angband — and a return from that direction doesn’t fit with the comet’s path.
I will say that the comet’s trajectory is a little confusing given that Arondir (Ismael Cruz Córdova) and Bronwyn (Nazanin Boniadi) watch it from their location somewhere among the fuzzy boundaries between Mordor, Khand, and Rhûn — if we’re to believe that the flyover of the map to this area is where their story takes place. This seems too far East from where the comet lands near the Harfoots for them to have seen it, but the showrunners are being intentionally ambiguous about locations.
The Other Wizards
I feel like I’ve effectively dismissed the idea that The Stranger might be one of the other Wizards, but I’ll wrap them up here.
The Blue Wizards
I vehemently and utterly reject the idea that Alatar would go anywhere without Pallando. They are the epitome of bromance in Tolkien’s legendarium, more so than Frodo and Sam, Merry and Pippin, Gimli and Legolas, and yes, even Túrin and Beleg. I will die on that hill.
I have many other thoughts and feelings about the Ithryn Luin, but the simple fact that they weren’t spooning in the same comet proves — to my satisfaction — that The Stranger is not one of them.
Radagast
Where’s the bird poop? Where’s the rabbit sled? Where’s the…alright, I’ll stop. Suffice to say that given the amount of visual references we get to Gandalf, and the dearth of visual references we get to Radagast, I find it highly unlikely that The Stranger is Radagast.
That said, I do dearly wish that we might get a Radagast redemption after The Hobbit films. I just don’t think this is it.
Saruman
It’s not Saruman. It just isn’t. Sure, he learns about hobbits a bit before Sauron in the Third Age, but in The Lord of the Rings you get the sense that he only knows of them because Gandalf won’t stop talking about them the way your younger sibling keeps blathering about whatever stupid TV show they’re into lately.
You’re Wrong
Maybe. Maybe Earendil crashed his ship. Maybe it’s Glorfindel — he had to come back somehow. Or like I said at the start, maybe it’s a brand new character we know nothing about.
I enjoy the speculation…to a point. I hope they don’t keep us waiting a full season to find out who The Stranger is. Whatever ends up happening, though, I just hope it works within the bounds of the story they’re telling.
Works Cited
Tolkien, J.R.R. The Lord of the Rings. 50th Anniversary Edition (single volume). Boston: Houghton Miffling Harcourt, 2004. [LOTR]
——. The Silmarillion. 2nd ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1981. [S]
——. Unfinished Tales.
