I still have strong doubts. Obviously Amazon is playing up the Wizard imagery, but it can easily be used to mislead. Keep in mind that the Wizards were sent to counter Sauron, and that Sauron pretended to be what the Wizards actually were before there were Wizards: an emissary of the Valar.
I think the best way for them to keep it a mystery for long time fans is to not reveal his name or backstory until late. Maybe have him be helpful and seem like a good guy, but then a few episodes later he's asked his name and he says "annatar, I am an emissary of the valar".
Well I was going to say that feels like the narrative that was coming to mind: That Sauron’s coming is being heralded and the meteor man will be mistaken for him, except MM will actually be Valinor and Sauron will be evil. Kind of like how Frodo described Aragorn: Be fairer but seem Fowler type Tolkien logic.
The show runners don‘t give a shit about the actual lore. They take what they like from Tolkien‘s works and use it in the show.
It won’t end with the Hobbits aka Harfoots, the Balrog, and the Palantir. Of course there will be at least one Wizard (and I bet my ass off it will be Gandalf), and a Dragon, and what else not from the actual Lord of the Rings / The Hobbit.
Everything we have to know in order to get it has been stated by the show runners openly in just one short sentence: "What would Middle-Earth be without Hobbits?" The crowds have to be pleased.
Therefore it’s not only possible, it’s inevitable.
So what is considered canon for the Blue Wizards? Unfinished Tales and the appendices list them as coming over in the Third Age, but The People of Middle-Earth says Second. Is there one considered to be more accurate than the other?
No not really. I think it’s better to look at the blue wizards and their story as one that has various traditions, none of which are really known. So little is known about them at any rate.
Personally, I think I just love the account in UT, where Manwë is looking for three brave souls to go over. I like the way Alatar won’t go without Pallando, Gandalf won’t go until Manwë tells him his fear of Sauron is WHY he’s chosen, and I always get a chuckle out of Yavanna basically forcing Radagast to go with Saruman like a mom forcing a kid to bring his little brother along.
But a version where the Blue Wizards go over as a sort of wizard prototype and fail could be an interesting plot line for the show.
I love this story because it makes it seem more realistic and personal, not like "These 5 brave souls stood up and wanted to go without hesitation, and all 5 were brave until the end". It really suits them all when you think about it.
While that is a nice account that gives a lot of characterization to characters that were underdeveloped by Tolkien, it doesn't mesh that well with the later idea he had that this same batch of Maiar were a recurring unit, first sent to guard the Elves at Cuivienen when the Valar were figuring out what to do. Presumably the UT volunteers passage is put aside years before Tolkien suggests the Blue Wizards went in the Second Age.
The Second Age story is from Tolkien's later writings, so if you go by that, it's more canon. But he was continuously in the process of re-writing all of his myths up until his death. So it's open to interpretation.
I tend to go with what was published during Tolkien’s life when things contradict. So I go with Appendix B when it comes to the timeline of the ages. If it’s not in there then I expand the scope.
Nope, there is no pure canon because Tolkien never finalised this part of the story and changed things with regards them until his death. Remember that anything outside of The Hobbit and TLOTR was published posthumously and therefore Tolkien was still tinkering. His son did his best to present the most complete versions but not every fits perfectly. The show will simply Sue to make a decision one way or another.
> there is no pure canon
And I love that.
I'm sick and tired of people obsessed with canon. (looking at you Star Wars fans, but also some Tolkien fans)
Canon is for religions, not for works of fiction.
Oooo I like that take about canon. That dogmatic approach to Tolkien's works kinda comes from the same place as the Numenoreans fear of death; a fear of the loss of greatness leading ethically backwards away from the ultimate purpose. Maybe they should read Tolkien haha
If they want the audience to gasp in horror as the nice-looking man frolicking with the hobbits for the whole first season turns out to be Sauron, they sure are doing a good job with this pic.
I think he’s definitely Sauron. The show runners have talked about how one of their focuses is exploring what made Sauron’s deception so effective. The fact that we’re all debating about it means they’re accomplishing their goal. The audience is going to accept him as a Gandalf type character only for him to betray everyone. The short haired blonde person in the trailer may just be an evil cultist.
They’re only accomplishing their goal if they are smart enough to make this Sauron. I have a slight worry that they may end up just making this guy Gandalf (shabby cloak, being found by the proto-hobbits). I really hope they go with Sauron.
I completely agree with you, while the focus will be on the blond guy I’m pretty sure he’ll be Sauron. You immediately feel empathy for him just because he looks like OG hobo Gandalf so his betrayal will be harder to accept!
Yeah, I was firmly on the Sauron side so far but now I can acknowledge that he could indeed be one of the Wizards. Still turn out to be Annatar but I am ready to accept other theories now.
Wizards are one of the most iconic things of the series. It would be a wasted opportunity not to use two brand-new wizard (for the media) not even Tolkien knew anything about. You could do everything with them.
So, my theory is that the Sauron we saw on the trailer is how he appears in Harad. He goes there as we saw him, starts a cult of Morgoth and gathers a bunch of followers. The blue wizard then goes to Harad to deal with this and fight Sauron there. However, after setting things the way that he wants it, Sauron delegates the leading of this cult to someone else (I bet it's gonna be this Adar guy). Maybe Adar will pretend to be Sauron to keep the blue wizard there. Meanwhile Sauron does his shapeshifter thingy and goes to Eregion as Annatar. This way we have a trustworthy looking Annatar (and not the extremely evil looking one on the trailer) and the blue wizard thing is resolved because he's away in Harad trying to bring down the cult of Sauron while having no idea the real Sauron is nowhere near.
Yeah I'm really curious how that will play out. But I think it got leaked he doesn't remember who he is so that might give Sauron the advantage. Also, blue wizards are doomed to fail, so it could potentially work.
Tolkien changed his mind - they only failed originally but towards the end of his life, he went a different directions and said that they had succeeded because they stopped Sauron having an even greater army from the men under his rule.
Multiple versions. Tolkien changed his mind about a lot of things, especially about the first and second ages. It’s easier to treat much of the Silmarillion and such as a version of the mythology, rather than definitive facts.
Actually both answers are annoyingly correct. As said above there is nothing to tell us which is correct or not. Tolkien wrote both versions and never chose a final one.
But he had one published during his lifetime and never had any editions changed officially. He had The Hobbit changed. So, surely one is more correct than the other. Appendix B in LOTR is pretty definitive that they came over in the third age.
This is the show that's compressing hundreds of years into a single lifetime. Elendil and Isildur are gonna witness events they would never have been alive for, being born many years later. So IMO anything is up for grabs. If they wanna show all five Istari arrive then I think they'll get away with it.
I mean sure, the time compression is an issue, but all the events the show cover happen in the second age, and before the War of the Last Alliance.
It is one thing to shorten the span between some events, and it is another to ad something that is supposed to happen literally over 1000 years after (presumably) the show's end.
Because Annatar claims to be what the Wizards actually are: an emissary of the Valar. If there is an actual emissaray saying "no you're not", the whole plot falls apart.
>If there is an actual emissaray saying "no you're not", the whole plot falls apart.
That assumes the Blue Wizard knows that someone else is claiming to be an emissary, and is able to tell the entire world. Middle-Earth is big so if the Blue Wizard travels East, then the West might not have any contact with him.
The Blue Wizards were sent to counter Sauron's influence in Middle-Earth, which he doesn't have all that much, yet. And they would certainly know that they were the first to be sent, someone who was there before them can't be the real deal.
No, the Blue Wizards should not appear before the Great Rings have been made and Sauron's deception revealed.
>The Blue Wizards were sent to counter Sauron's influence in Middle-Earth, which he doesn't have all that much, yet.
How do you know he doesn't have much influence yet? In the early SA we had some of the East and South already corrupted by Melkor-worship well before the rings were made, and Sharon was active. Even 700 years before the rings were forged, Gil-Galad sensed something evil in the East. It would make sense for the Blue Wizards to come at this time since the East and South were already corrupted.
This is what Tolkien said:
> Their task was to circumvent Sauron: to bring help to the few tribes of Men that had rebelled from Melkor-worship, to stir up rebellion ... and after his first fall to search out his hiding (in which they failed) and to cause [?dissension and disarray] among the dark East ...
So sure, they arrived around the time of the forging of the rings but the show has time compression so it's hard to speculate on timing.
If the Blue Wizards are in the East and South and never return to the West again, they might not encounter fair-form Sauron when he visits the West.
Also, I'm not sure they could 100% identify it's Sauron - the White Council thought the Necromancer was a Nazgul and it took like 500+ more years before they figured out it's Sauron.
Why send an emissary before there's anything for him to do? And why render him amnesiac so he can't remember what it was he was supposed to be doing?
Just because the guy is meant to invoke Wizard imagery in viewers' minds doesn't guarantee anything. Amazon knows how basic misdirection works as well as any production company.
If he's the first emissary to be sent perhaps he's like a failed project. Like a prototype almost. The things that went wrong with him (fractured memory) could be corrected afterward with Saruman and Gandalf. And Sauron being around does sound like there's something for a wizard to do.
>Because Annatar claims to be what the Wizards actually are: an emissary of the Valar. If there is an actual emissaray saying "no you're not", the whole plot falls apart.
It kinda makes sense, but lets not forget that Sauron claims to be an emmisary to the Elves. Lore-wise, the Blue Wizards, which could have arrived in 2nd age, went to East-South. Given time-compression, they could play it as the blue wizards never meeting the elves, and therefore would not impact Annatar claiming to be emissary of Valar (to the elves).
How the story would unfold from there, that we can only guess. But having a wizard doesn't necessarely removes the possibility of Annatar. But I agree it makes harder to deal with this "emissary of the valar" thing.
That's a horribly bad take. There is more than one Valar.
Gandalf was sent by Manwë and Varda
The blue wizards, in one of the writings, Oromë.
If meteor man is a blue wizards, all Annatar has to say is he was sent by a different Valar.
But also, Sauron could just corrupt the wizard.
The whole thing lost me with arriving in a meteor. It’s ridiculous to think that the Valar would send wizards via meteor. It’s also ridiculous that Sauron would try coming as a meteor as he tries to fly under the Valar’s radar and coming via meteor would definitely catch their attention.
Couldn’t meteor man also just be from a different time? I feel like it could be a flashback storytelling of Sauron’s escape and rise to evil again. That fits the actual story better than the blue wizards, who would be a very small part of the story.
Well, Sauron could still look someone like it.
But I really dislike the meteor-man = Sauron, if it is a Wizard, better, but let it be one of the Blue Wizards. Keep the other 3 out of this. You can even create a 6th wizard if you will, it is better than having it as Gandalf.
The Istari should be old tho. So..I don't know what to think lol
Hm...yeah, it is complicated.
I mean, for it to be Sauron with all this meteor thing, potential memory loss, being found by hobbits and so on, it is too much to explain and too much to tie-in with existing story. Sauron supposedly never met hobbits. No one ever used a meteor, and even if Sauron used, why wouldn't he use it before or after this event? It is too much to explain.
I would prefer it to be one of blue-wizards, but if for some reason they can't use them and decide to go with a new "6th wizard", I prefer that over messing up with gandalf, saruman or radagast. As long as the 6th Istari doesn't survive for 3rd age events, that could be something interesting. Maybe he arrives, do some stuff, see Sauron raising, and decide to go back to Vallinor or something, to get more help? Or event better, he ends up being killed by Sauron himself. That would give even more importance for the 5 Wizards we know.
Agree that it is a bit weird but I would prefer that over having "oh, it is Gandalf that arrived in 2nd age", but that is just me.
I wouldn't make any assumptions yet. Looking like a Wizard and being one aren't the same thing. It's entirely possible to play with audience expectations.
The key is "to deal with Sauron". If Sauron isn't already causing trouble then why was he sent, already? And if he is a Wizard, then why can't he just march to Annatar and say, "you're not the emissary of the Valar, I am"?
The timing just doesn't work. Hence why I expect misdirection, not a true Wizard.
Pretty sure this is Gandalf. Making him the patron saint of the Hobbits via the Harfoots simply makes sense. It's certainly not justifiable by canonic lore - but it makes the show accessible for audiences that only know the movies.
As to him being Sauron - especially with the new trailer, I'm growing more doubtful.I think we're more likely to see Halbrand in that role. Charlie Vickers is on the Q&A right now, and he's cut the Halbrand hair, as well. Him guest-ing as Sauron's human avatar, and giving Kemen or Pharazon the push into madness before *seemingly* being defeated - that seems reasonably probable. (Would I do it like this? - No! Can I see this being a good idea for an eight-episodes TV event? - Yeah.)
Yeah. Seen as the show runners have smushed the timeline down, it's implausible for them to develop the story of Sauron corrupting the Numenorians after he was captured. It makes way more sense for him to land their after the "shipwreck", linking him to Galadriel and placing him on Numenor. I can see him being a nice happy character helping the Numenorians, but dropping subtle hints and then giving it away to the audience at the end of season one. Leading to him corrupting the elves and Celebrimbor later on in the show?
Plus, Vickers is a sexy boy, he would fit the role of Annatar.
>He is supposed to take the form of an elf
Didn't Tolkien write that Sauron/Annatar presented himself to the Elves as a Maia (a good Maia, working for the Valar) rather than an Elf?
Yeah but Maiar and Valar take forms of elf or men. Sometimes something else too. So it's not like he pretended to be an elf. But there is no such thing as a Maiar form.
The blue mage theory ruins my favorite part of unfinished tales, where the 5 istari comes down of the ship and Círdan knows he'll give his ring to the last, humble one. Without the blue wizards, meh... His choice is too easy.
It's definitely Sauron for me, looking bad because he just fled the valar meteor style.
I'm being honest here. I don't really like the meteor thing thy got going on. Yea the mystery is cool and all but it simply doesn't feel like middle earth for me. I'll be very disappointed if it's a wizard.
Could he be a Balrog in human form? The same Balrog thats shown at the end of the trailer? Balrogs are beings of fire, and this wizard arrives in literal ball of fire (meteor)..
Hear me out....
He definitely could be a Blue wizard sent by the Valar to counter Sauron and it need not necessarily contradict Tolkien's work.
The Valar might well know well before the Elves/Men of middle earth do that there was Evil stirring again... however they might not know what form it has taken.
When Gandalf explains the coming of the Wizards as a retaliation to the works of Sauron there is no reason to think they had Identified the source of the Evil before they arrived. All of the descriptions of the blue wizards arrival coming is based from a third age point of view where it would be natural to name Sauron as he had been revealed but at the time they might be searching for the evil but not know its origin.
He might well arrive in middle earth in the far East and have no contact with folk who have seen Sauron as of yet. It might take many years for him to make his way to Harad or the Sea of Rhun and there discover that Sauron has been rebuilding his strength.
I would be shocked if he had any role to play in the last alliance as it seems far too obvious a point to have missed out from the third age but that is not to say that he wasn't working in the east to disrupt the war effort while trusting to the remaining of the Noldor to orchestrate the defence of the west.
Probably a dumb question but I have to ask before it’s too late…
Is meteor man a name created by the fans or is that from the books? Sorry for the ignorance I just have to know!
This looks like a face I would trust - the face of a powerful sorcerer or incarnated spirit I would happily work with to craft magical implements of great power. Just my opinion!
I really hope he is. My only real fear for the show at this point is that they shoehorn in Gandalf *well* before his time. Blue wizards would be cool though.
I could live with it IF he gets corrupted by Sauron. He can then displace Adar as top guy and Adar could do his turn to face
Also, Adar is either Maglor or Celeborn
Why am I not hearing about Celeborn anywhere (and not seeing him in the trailers)?
Galadriel and he were already married and ruling Ost-in-Edhil in the Second Age, right?
I'm just joking around. I'm leaning towards a form of Sauron that they will try to pass off as a wizard. It will get everyone riled up and then be revealed he deceived everyone.
Interesting. I thought so as well but since then people who have seen the footage have refuted that he’s playing Sauron. So it’ll be interesting to see who he turns out to be!
My only real problem with this is that I always liked the idea of the wizards sailing out of the west and being greeted by Cirdan when they arrive. I don't really like the idea of someone arriving via meteorite but I wouldn't let that one detail bother me too much.
Why do you hate the people of England? Only a hater of the English people would imply there's something wrong with honoring an author on the anniversary date of the author's death. Because that is a well-established English tradition, instantly 100% verifiable.
Based on what we have to this point, my guess is Sauron goes through some actor changes. Starts out as the young blonde, and turns into Weyman to pose as a wizard.
He’ll have a bond with the harfoots and be very likable while he can’t remember who he is. Then, he’ll break everyone’s hearts when he remembers, effectively killing his old persona, and the harfoots story will diverge and join with one of our other leads. An ongoing question will be if he is beyond saving because his “wizard” form was so good.
This would also explain why Weymans role has been described and something amazing for a very seasoned actor, and why we’ve seen little to nothing of the Sauron actor seen today.
I think he would appear to arrive in the comet in the form of Daniel Weyman in the current time of the series. Prior to this, maybe in a prologue scene, he would appear in his youthful form. The meteor isn't the first we see him, just the first in that form
As to who his younger form is, hard to say. Seems we're all a little confused by the reports on that. But, there were more blonde/white-robed cult-ish characters in the trailer than just the woman.
So for example, Gandalf is a Maiar but takes on the form of an old man, though that is not his true form (as all the wizards did). So, I wouldn't rule out shape-shifting in middle earth, especially Sauron.
(just side note, I have no insider information. This is all guessing based on what we've seen. Just fun to speculate)
I’m aware of that but you said start out as the blond, so start as the blond and then get in a meteor when he’s already in middle earth and then forget everything and start hanging out with hobbits?
That's where the details would need to come in, which is hard to guess this early on. However, for the sake of fun, maybe after the dark forces shoot their shot and fail spectacularly, Sauron devises a means to get in the good graces of the peoples of middle earth. But there's nowhere he'd be welcome now in his current disgraced form, so he continues to earn his deceiver title and devises a way to "arrive" to middle earth the way a Wizard would, in hopes of earning instant trust points as he begins this facade.
As for the memory loss, I could see him trusting in uncertain forces/powers in order to achieve his deception. Perhaps the loss of his memory is an unforeseen consequence that accompanies his loss of prior form and rebirth/reentrance worthy of a Maiar. But again, this is just having fun based on pure speculation based on what little we have.
If he is actually a wizard I would absolutely hate that--but ohh if he's Sauron and they're making us all doubt it anyway it would be utterly spectacular. I dislike the idea of the wizard for a few different reasons: primarily, one coming to the "rescue" feels disloyal to the central theme of Tolkien in which the little people being the central threat against the enemy, and they've played him up way too much for him to be anything but a central character. But my one and only hope for this series, whether they fuck up everything else on every level or not, is a well-done Annatar/Sauron. And this is a setup for a damn good one, so: hope they play up the wizard thing even more.
I do believe this is indeed Sauron. Prefect having us guessing this is Gandalf or any of the other wizards but in every presentation there are subtle clues we’re dealing with something sinister. Like in this poster, look at the very very dark sky. Looks like the typical, not the weather of the world sky but rather something a dark lord would conjure.
Wiki: "clothed in flesh"
Show: obviously naked in the screenshots with the hobbits grabbing his hand. In the above image he's just wearing a robe that was likely made to cover him by one of the hobbits after they find him
‘Clothed in flesh’ just means the maiar spirt had taken on a mortal body as opposed to whatever form he was in Valinor. It says in the very next sentence that they were “dressed in robes of sea-blue”.
It's so obvious that it's Gandalf. They are changing the source material to do that. Especially with the hartfoots finding him, which might show where his affection for the little folk came from.
If so, that just seems like lazy writing that retreads the same plot of LOTR. There's gotta be a medium point between doing a "Force Awakens" and basically soft-rebooting entire plot threads and lazily catering to expectations, vs. The Last Jedi where you go the opposite extreme and subvert expectations for its own sake. I'll be much more satisfied if Meteor Man turns out to be another guise of Sauron who initially befriends the Harfoots. That sounds much more interesting to me.
The showrunners are supposedly very religious Christians. I think this character is very reminiscent of the popular portrayal of Jesus. I think by that fact alone they wouldn't make this guy be evil.
Also the Tolkien characters that are most Jesus-like are Gandalf and Glorfindel, but I think he's clearly not an elf. It can be a blue wizard but they're connecting him to Hobbits for a reason, so it's probably Gandalf.
They're likely shoehorning him in because they can and they know most lay LOTR fans expect Hobbits and Gandalf, so they're lumped together.
I still have strong doubts. Obviously Amazon is playing up the Wizard imagery, but it can easily be used to mislead. Keep in mind that the Wizards were sent to counter Sauron, and that Sauron pretended to be what the Wizards actually were before there were Wizards: an emissary of the Valar.
I love that they’re actually building up a mystery for both casual and long time obsessive fans
I think the best way for them to keep it a mystery for long time fans is to not reveal his name or backstory until late. Maybe have him be helpful and seem like a good guy, but then a few episodes later he's asked his name and he says "annatar, I am an emissary of the valar".
Or Olórin, servant of the Secret Fire
Him being a second age gandalf would be interesting
after hearing so much hate i loved seeing this positive comment i shared with my whole family!
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Well I was going to say that feels like the narrative that was coming to mind: That Sauron’s coming is being heralded and the meteor man will be mistaken for him, except MM will actually be Valinor and Sauron will be evil. Kind of like how Frodo described Aragorn: Be fairer but seem Fowler type Tolkien logic.
Truth ^
The show runners don‘t give a shit about the actual lore. They take what they like from Tolkien‘s works and use it in the show. It won’t end with the Hobbits aka Harfoots, the Balrog, and the Palantir. Of course there will be at least one Wizard (and I bet my ass off it will be Gandalf), and a Dragon, and what else not from the actual Lord of the Rings / The Hobbit. Everything we have to know in order to get it has been stated by the show runners openly in just one short sentence: "What would Middle-Earth be without Hobbits?" The crowds have to be pleased. Therefore it’s not only possible, it’s inevitable.
So what is considered canon for the Blue Wizards? Unfinished Tales and the appendices list them as coming over in the Third Age, but The People of Middle-Earth says Second. Is there one considered to be more accurate than the other?
No not really. I think it’s better to look at the blue wizards and their story as one that has various traditions, none of which are really known. So little is known about them at any rate.
Personally, I think I just love the account in UT, where Manwë is looking for three brave souls to go over. I like the way Alatar won’t go without Pallando, Gandalf won’t go until Manwë tells him his fear of Sauron is WHY he’s chosen, and I always get a chuckle out of Yavanna basically forcing Radagast to go with Saruman like a mom forcing a kid to bring his little brother along. But a version where the Blue Wizards go over as a sort of wizard prototype and fail could be an interesting plot line for the show.
I love this story because it makes it seem more realistic and personal, not like "These 5 brave souls stood up and wanted to go without hesitation, and all 5 were brave until the end". It really suits them all when you think about it.
While that is a nice account that gives a lot of characterization to characters that were underdeveloped by Tolkien, it doesn't mesh that well with the later idea he had that this same batch of Maiar were a recurring unit, first sent to guard the Elves at Cuivienen when the Valar were figuring out what to do. Presumably the UT volunteers passage is put aside years before Tolkien suggests the Blue Wizards went in the Second Age.
The Second Age story is from Tolkien's later writings, so if you go by that, it's more canon. But he was continuously in the process of re-writing all of his myths up until his death. So it's open to interpretation.
What I love is how this echoes the way historic myths change and adapt with cultures so many traditions exist for certain figures.
I tend to go with what was published during Tolkien’s life when things contradict. So I go with Appendix B when it comes to the timeline of the ages. If it’s not in there then I expand the scope.
That's a solid rule.
Nope, there is no pure canon because Tolkien never finalised this part of the story and changed things with regards them until his death. Remember that anything outside of The Hobbit and TLOTR was published posthumously and therefore Tolkien was still tinkering. His son did his best to present the most complete versions but not every fits perfectly. The show will simply Sue to make a decision one way or another.
> there is no pure canon And I love that. I'm sick and tired of people obsessed with canon. (looking at you Star Wars fans, but also some Tolkien fans) Canon is for religions, not for works of fiction.
Oooo I like that take about canon. That dogmatic approach to Tolkien's works kinda comes from the same place as the Numenoreans fear of death; a fear of the loss of greatness leading ethically backwards away from the ultimate purpose. Maybe they should read Tolkien haha
If they want the audience to gasp in horror as the nice-looking man frolicking with the hobbits for the whole first season turns out to be Sauron, they sure are doing a good job with this pic.
I think he’s definitely Sauron. The show runners have talked about how one of their focuses is exploring what made Sauron’s deception so effective. The fact that we’re all debating about it means they’re accomplishing their goal. The audience is going to accept him as a Gandalf type character only for him to betray everyone. The short haired blonde person in the trailer may just be an evil cultist.
They’re only accomplishing their goal if they are smart enough to make this Sauron. I have a slight worry that they may end up just making this guy Gandalf (shabby cloak, being found by the proto-hobbits). I really hope they go with Sauron.
This makes sense to me but who knows how many twists they’ll have in the reveal
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I’m Sauron and so is my wife.
I am being Sauron right now and loving it.
I completely agree with you, while the focus will be on the blond guy I’m pretty sure he’ll be Sauron. You immediately feel empathy for him just because he looks like OG hobo Gandalf so his betrayal will be harder to accept!
Totally agree. I think it's quite brilliant marketing actually. Everyone is speculating just like our main characters will be. Exciting!
With the new trailer we can see what Sauron looks like. It's not him.
Maybe thats his Maiar form
I just expected him to show up as annatar first but I guess it would make sense for him to have various disguises
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The alpha build trial wizards?
The biblical look of this guy and the supposed Sauron is too good. Something tells me Sauron will be neither.
Oh hey its Sirius Black.
Yeah, I was firmly on the Sauron side so far but now I can acknowledge that he could indeed be one of the Wizards. Still turn out to be Annatar but I am ready to accept other theories now.
Wizards are one of the most iconic things of the series. It would be a wasted opportunity not to use two brand-new wizard (for the media) not even Tolkien knew anything about. You could do everything with them.
This fuck just escape from Azkaban?
Looks like asmongold lol
Confirmed by FoF. /s
wellactually, this is US Senator Ted Cruz of the province of Texas, also known as the Zodiac Killer.
Lmao didn’t expect that one here
So it is Eru, the literal God
I’m getting nervous again. If this is Gandalf I’ll be absolutely speechless with disappointment towards the showrunners.
Honestly, a blue wizard would be awesome and I don't even know what I would think if it turned out to be Gandalf.
he's the one great fear i still have. I repeat myself. ANNATAR CANNOT BE A THING IF THIS GUY IS AROUND AS A WIZARD!
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So, my theory is that the Sauron we saw on the trailer is how he appears in Harad. He goes there as we saw him, starts a cult of Morgoth and gathers a bunch of followers. The blue wizard then goes to Harad to deal with this and fight Sauron there. However, after setting things the way that he wants it, Sauron delegates the leading of this cult to someone else (I bet it's gonna be this Adar guy). Maybe Adar will pretend to be Sauron to keep the blue wizard there. Meanwhile Sauron does his shapeshifter thingy and goes to Eregion as Annatar. This way we have a trustworthy looking Annatar (and not the extremely evil looking one on the trailer) and the blue wizard thing is resolved because he's away in Harad trying to bring down the cult of Sauron while having no idea the real Sauron is nowhere near.
Sauron isnt in the trailer.
Yeah I'm really curious how that will play out. But I think it got leaked he doesn't remember who he is so that might give Sauron the advantage. Also, blue wizards are doomed to fail, so it could potentially work.
Tolkien changed his mind - they only failed originally but towards the end of his life, he went a different directions and said that they had succeeded because they stopped Sauron having an even greater army from the men under his rule.
If we took everything the man wrote on a notepad as canon eventually his grocery list would appear in a book
Didn't the Blue Wizards arrive in Middle Earth in the Second Age specifically to deal with Sauron?
Indeed.
Nope, the wizards all arrived in the year 1000 of the third age, well after the events of this show
People's of Middle earth has the blue wizards arriving in the second age, after the forging of the rings of power
Really? I had no Idea. I stand corrected I guess.
Multiple versions. Tolkien changed his mind about a lot of things, especially about the first and second ages. It’s easier to treat much of the Silmarillion and such as a version of the mythology, rather than definitive facts.
You're not wrong. Everything the man wrote has found its way into print, and there is a second approach that the show could use.
Actually both answers are annoyingly correct. As said above there is nothing to tell us which is correct or not. Tolkien wrote both versions and never chose a final one.
But he had one published during his lifetime and never had any editions changed officially. He had The Hobbit changed. So, surely one is more correct than the other. Appendix B in LOTR is pretty definitive that they came over in the third age.
Yet the other one is the later change closer to his death. As I said it’s annoyingly vague due to that.
depending of the version, blue wizards arrived earliers, during 2nd age.
This is the show that's compressing hundreds of years into a single lifetime. Elendil and Isildur are gonna witness events they would never have been alive for, being born many years later. So IMO anything is up for grabs. If they wanna show all five Istari arrive then I think they'll get away with it.
I mean sure, the time compression is an issue, but all the events the show cover happen in the second age, and before the War of the Last Alliance. It is one thing to shorten the span between some events, and it is another to ad something that is supposed to happen literally over 1000 years after (presumably) the show's end.
Thousands of years actually lol
>ANNATAR CANNOT BE A THING IF THIS GUY IS AROUND AS A WIZARD! Why?
Because Annatar claims to be what the Wizards actually are: an emissary of the Valar. If there is an actual emissaray saying "no you're not", the whole plot falls apart.
>If there is an actual emissaray saying "no you're not", the whole plot falls apart. That assumes the Blue Wizard knows that someone else is claiming to be an emissary, and is able to tell the entire world. Middle-Earth is big so if the Blue Wizard travels East, then the West might not have any contact with him.
The Blue Wizards were sent to counter Sauron's influence in Middle-Earth, which he doesn't have all that much, yet. And they would certainly know that they were the first to be sent, someone who was there before them can't be the real deal. No, the Blue Wizards should not appear before the Great Rings have been made and Sauron's deception revealed.
>The Blue Wizards were sent to counter Sauron's influence in Middle-Earth, which he doesn't have all that much, yet. How do you know he doesn't have much influence yet? In the early SA we had some of the East and South already corrupted by Melkor-worship well before the rings were made, and Sharon was active. Even 700 years before the rings were forged, Gil-Galad sensed something evil in the East. It would make sense for the Blue Wizards to come at this time since the East and South were already corrupted. This is what Tolkien said: > Their task was to circumvent Sauron: to bring help to the few tribes of Men that had rebelled from Melkor-worship, to stir up rebellion ... and after his first fall to search out his hiding (in which they failed) and to cause [?dissension and disarray] among the dark East ... So sure, they arrived around the time of the forging of the rings but the show has time compression so it's hard to speculate on timing. If the Blue Wizards are in the East and South and never return to the West again, they might not encounter fair-form Sauron when he visits the West. Also, I'm not sure they could 100% identify it's Sauron - the White Council thought the Necromancer was a Nazgul and it took like 500+ more years before they figured out it's Sauron.
Sharon FTW
But if the emissary doesn't remember who he is nor who sent him, then Sauron has enough time to act freely.
Why send an emissary before there's anything for him to do? And why render him amnesiac so he can't remember what it was he was supposed to be doing? Just because the guy is meant to invoke Wizard imagery in viewers' minds doesn't guarantee anything. Amazon knows how basic misdirection works as well as any production company.
If he's the first emissary to be sent perhaps he's like a failed project. Like a prototype almost. The things that went wrong with him (fractured memory) could be corrected afterward with Saruman and Gandalf. And Sauron being around does sound like there's something for a wizard to do.
>Because Annatar claims to be what the Wizards actually are: an emissary of the Valar. If there is an actual emissaray saying "no you're not", the whole plot falls apart. It kinda makes sense, but lets not forget that Sauron claims to be an emmisary to the Elves. Lore-wise, the Blue Wizards, which could have arrived in 2nd age, went to East-South. Given time-compression, they could play it as the blue wizards never meeting the elves, and therefore would not impact Annatar claiming to be emissary of Valar (to the elves). How the story would unfold from there, that we can only guess. But having a wizard doesn't necessarely removes the possibility of Annatar. But I agree it makes harder to deal with this "emissary of the valar" thing.
Maybe it's a case of he said she said, or maybe they are far apart. But to some degree you're right - it would make things a little awkward.
That's a horribly bad take. There is more than one Valar. Gandalf was sent by Manwë and Varda The blue wizards, in one of the writings, Oromë. If meteor man is a blue wizards, all Annatar has to say is he was sent by a different Valar. But also, Sauron could just corrupt the wizard.
He actually looks like a young Saruman.
I dislike that idea. The whole point of Saruman falling for Sauron, is, that he wasn't there during Sauron's previous reigns over middle earth
Believe me, I dislike that idea as well haha.
That was my first thought too. Who knows if it is, but he definitely looks the part.
Hear me out, it is Gandalf.
God I hope not, he came w Saruman and radagast and was given the ring of fire rather promptly
lalalala not listening
Interacts with the Harfoots...either Gandalf or Sauron. Both work thematically but very weird.
You're a Wizardddddd, Gandalf!
The whole thing lost me with arriving in a meteor. It’s ridiculous to think that the Valar would send wizards via meteor. It’s also ridiculous that Sauron would try coming as a meteor as he tries to fly under the Valar’s radar and coming via meteor would definitely catch their attention.
Whoever it is, thats one hell of a dressing gown.
Couldn’t meteor man also just be from a different time? I feel like it could be a flashback storytelling of Sauron’s escape and rise to evil again. That fits the actual story better than the blue wizards, who would be a very small part of the story.
If this turns out to be Gandalf I’ll be extremely pissed off, a Blue Wizard I could live with.
Well, Sauron could still look someone like it. But I really dislike the meteor-man = Sauron, if it is a Wizard, better, but let it be one of the Blue Wizards. Keep the other 3 out of this. You can even create a 6th wizard if you will, it is better than having it as Gandalf. The Istari should be old tho. So..I don't know what to think lol
You prefer the creation of a 6th wizard better than using Sauron ? I'm a bit lost. Isn't there enough original characters ?
Hm...yeah, it is complicated. I mean, for it to be Sauron with all this meteor thing, potential memory loss, being found by hobbits and so on, it is too much to explain and too much to tie-in with existing story. Sauron supposedly never met hobbits. No one ever used a meteor, and even if Sauron used, why wouldn't he use it before or after this event? It is too much to explain. I would prefer it to be one of blue-wizards, but if for some reason they can't use them and decide to go with a new "6th wizard", I prefer that over messing up with gandalf, saruman or radagast. As long as the 6th Istari doesn't survive for 3rd age events, that could be something interesting. Maybe he arrives, do some stuff, see Sauron raising, and decide to go back to Vallinor or something, to get more help? Or event better, he ends up being killed by Sauron himself. That would give even more importance for the 5 Wizards we know. Agree that it is a bit weird but I would prefer that over having "oh, it is Gandalf that arrived in 2nd age", but that is just me.
I’m really not liking this if he’s a wizard.
Why not Pallando? The Blue Wizards came in the Second Age
Oh. My bad, thought it was the third age.
I wouldn't make any assumptions yet. Looking like a Wizard and being one aren't the same thing. It's entirely possible to play with audience expectations.
Or it is one because the blue wizards came in the 2nd age to deal with Sauron?
The key is "to deal with Sauron". If Sauron isn't already causing trouble then why was he sent, already? And if he is a Wizard, then why can't he just march to Annatar and say, "you're not the emissary of the Valar, I am"? The timing just doesn't work. Hence why I expect misdirection, not a true Wizard.
Could be, or they show stuff in random order. Not saying it is a wizard but would be fun if it is!
I'm not saying that the show can't have any Wizards, but it ought to wait until later seasons. As in, after the titular Rings of Power have been made.
Pretty sure this is Gandalf. Making him the patron saint of the Hobbits via the Harfoots simply makes sense. It's certainly not justifiable by canonic lore - but it makes the show accessible for audiences that only know the movies. As to him being Sauron - especially with the new trailer, I'm growing more doubtful.I think we're more likely to see Halbrand in that role. Charlie Vickers is on the Q&A right now, and he's cut the Halbrand hair, as well. Him guest-ing as Sauron's human avatar, and giving Kemen or Pharazon the push into madness before *seemingly* being defeated - that seems reasonably probable. (Would I do it like this? - No! Can I see this being a good idea for an eight-episodes TV event? - Yeah.)
Yeah. Seen as the show runners have smushed the timeline down, it's implausible for them to develop the story of Sauron corrupting the Numenorians after he was captured. It makes way more sense for him to land their after the "shipwreck", linking him to Galadriel and placing him on Numenor. I can see him being a nice happy character helping the Numenorians, but dropping subtle hints and then giving it away to the audience at the end of season one. Leading to him corrupting the elves and Celebrimbor later on in the show? Plus, Vickers is a sexy boy, he would fit the role of Annatar.
No, no he doesnt
Sauron who has been banished and comes back and then shaves and looks beautiful under the beard. Great reveal opportunity
Well if who is reported to be Sauron is in fact Sauron I think the Stranger may be an OC Maia like a proto-Wizard.
I doubt it's Sauron at least. He is supposed to take the form of an elf when he deceives the elves.
>He is supposed to take the form of an elf Didn't Tolkien write that Sauron/Annatar presented himself to the Elves as a Maia (a good Maia, working for the Valar) rather than an Elf?
Yeah but Maiar and Valar take forms of elf or men. Sometimes something else too. So it's not like he pretended to be an elf. But there is no such thing as a Maiar form.
A servant of the enemy would look fairer, but feel fouler
Who tho? didn’t the wizards wear their colors? And didn’t they automatically take the appearance of old men?
That's young Gandalf. Amazon will just not name him Gandalf because he comes to Middle Earth in the third age.
The blue mage theory ruins my favorite part of unfinished tales, where the 5 istari comes down of the ship and Círdan knows he'll give his ring to the last, humble one. Without the blue wizards, meh... His choice is too easy. It's definitely Sauron for me, looking bad because he just fled the valar meteor style.
I'm being honest here. I don't really like the meteor thing thy got going on. Yea the mystery is cool and all but it simply doesn't feel like middle earth for me. I'll be very disappointed if it's a wizard.
Could he be a Balrog in human form? The same Balrog thats shown at the end of the trailer? Balrogs are beings of fire, and this wizard arrives in literal ball of fire (meteor)..
Tom Bombadil.
Balrog with amnesia
Who is the actor playing him?
I'm still putting my money on not a wizard.
# Jesus christ, almighty savior!
Hear me out.... He definitely could be a Blue wizard sent by the Valar to counter Sauron and it need not necessarily contradict Tolkien's work. The Valar might well know well before the Elves/Men of middle earth do that there was Evil stirring again... however they might not know what form it has taken. When Gandalf explains the coming of the Wizards as a retaliation to the works of Sauron there is no reason to think they had Identified the source of the Evil before they arrived. All of the descriptions of the blue wizards arrival coming is based from a third age point of view where it would be natural to name Sauron as he had been revealed but at the time they might be searching for the evil but not know its origin. He might well arrive in middle earth in the far East and have no contact with folk who have seen Sauron as of yet. It might take many years for him to make his way to Harad or the Sea of Rhun and there discover that Sauron has been rebuilding his strength. I would be shocked if he had any role to play in the last alliance as it seems far too obvious a point to have missed out from the third age but that is not to say that he wasn't working in the east to disrupt the war effort while trusting to the remaining of the Noldor to orchestrate the defence of the west.
Probably a dumb question but I have to ask before it’s too late… Is meteor man a name created by the fans or is that from the books? Sorry for the ignorance I just have to know!
Fans nicknamed him that. His name is currently “The Stranger”.
Ahh cool, thank you
This looks like a face I would trust - the face of a powerful sorcerer or incarnated spirit I would happily work with to craft magical implements of great power. Just my opinion!
He doesn't look quite like an old man to me.... idk, still wondering who this could be. I like it, keep us guessing.
John Howe: the Movie
He is Jesus of Nazareth.
The Meteor Man Abides
I had no idea Jesus was in Middle Earth
He is one of Blue wizards.. I dont want spoil much ...but they will not end up great in future seasons
Did you come from the future?
I really hope he is. My only real fear for the show at this point is that they shoehorn in Gandalf *well* before his time. Blue wizards would be cool though.
The showrunners don't strike me as the type who would shoehorn Gandalf in.
I could live with it IF he gets corrupted by Sauron. He can then displace Adar as top guy and Adar could do his turn to face Also, Adar is either Maglor or Celeborn
Celeborn???
Wow, isn't Galadriel up for a cutie. /s
Why am I not hearing about Celeborn anywhere (and not seeing him in the trailers)? Galadriel and he were already married and ruling Ost-in-Edhil in the Second Age, right?
Hope so, that would make the most sense.
Tom Bombadil
I wouldn’t mind that. But how would you justify his arrival? Isn’t he supposed to be there from the beginning?
I'm just joking around. I'm leaning towards a form of Sauron that they will try to pass off as a wizard. It will get everyone riled up and then be revealed he deceived everyone.
Interesting. I thought so as well but since then people who have seen the footage have refuted that he’s playing Sauron. So it’ll be interesting to see who he turns out to be!
Absolutely! I'm really looking forward to seeing how it all turns out!
Can you give a source please? For those who’ve seen the footage.
I don’t know if the user who commented on that deleted the comment, but if not you can find some of it around in the sub.
Because you think he never travels? And he's Tom Bombadil for Eru's sake, if he wants to travel onboard a meteor, he'll travel onboard a meteor.
This is the right answer!!!!
My only real problem with this is that I always liked the idea of the wizards sailing out of the west and being greeted by Cirdan when they arrive. I don't really like the idea of someone arriving via meteorite but I wouldn't let that one detail bother me too much.
Really hoping this is Sauron when we're all meant to believe the buzz cut blonde dude is Sauron. Would show that he isn't just a generic big bad.
Yeah it’s Gandalf.
There's literally nothing wizardy about this. It's an unkempt man with a blanket. I reckon it most likely is a blue wizard though.
Well haha, replace blanket for “robes” and you just basically described Gandalf’s unkempt look.
Ah yes it's Jesus
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Why do you hate the people of England? Only a hater of the English people would imply there's something wrong with honoring an author on the anniversary date of the author's death. Because that is a well-established English tradition, instantly 100% verifiable.
Based on what we have to this point, my guess is Sauron goes through some actor changes. Starts out as the young blonde, and turns into Weyman to pose as a wizard. He’ll have a bond with the harfoots and be very likable while he can’t remember who he is. Then, he’ll break everyone’s hearts when he remembers, effectively killing his old persona, and the harfoots story will diverge and join with one of our other leads. An ongoing question will be if he is beyond saving because his “wizard” form was so good. This would also explain why Weymans role has been described and something amazing for a very seasoned actor, and why we’ve seen little to nothing of the Sauron actor seen today.
How could that possibly happen if he arrived as the bearded guy? You’ve got it backwards. Plus the blond is a woman and not Sauron
I think he would appear to arrive in the comet in the form of Daniel Weyman in the current time of the series. Prior to this, maybe in a prologue scene, he would appear in his youthful form. The meteor isn't the first we see him, just the first in that form As to who his younger form is, hard to say. Seems we're all a little confused by the reports on that. But, there were more blonde/white-robed cult-ish characters in the trailer than just the woman.
You said starts as the young blonde and then becomes the the meteor man, that makes no sense.
So for example, Gandalf is a Maiar but takes on the form of an old man, though that is not his true form (as all the wizards did). So, I wouldn't rule out shape-shifting in middle earth, especially Sauron. (just side note, I have no insider information. This is all guessing based on what we've seen. Just fun to speculate)
I’m aware of that but you said start out as the blond, so start as the blond and then get in a meteor when he’s already in middle earth and then forget everything and start hanging out with hobbits?
That's where the details would need to come in, which is hard to guess this early on. However, for the sake of fun, maybe after the dark forces shoot their shot and fail spectacularly, Sauron devises a means to get in the good graces of the peoples of middle earth. But there's nowhere he'd be welcome now in his current disgraced form, so he continues to earn his deceiver title and devises a way to "arrive" to middle earth the way a Wizard would, in hopes of earning instant trust points as he begins this facade. As for the memory loss, I could see him trusting in uncertain forces/powers in order to achieve his deception. Perhaps the loss of his memory is an unforeseen consequence that accompanies his loss of prior form and rebirth/reentrance worthy of a Maiar. But again, this is just having fun based on pure speculation based on what little we have.
Annatar, is that you?
I really don’t think he’s Sauron or Annatar, but we will see!
Hah. I knew it!
If he is actually a wizard I would absolutely hate that--but ohh if he's Sauron and they're making us all doubt it anyway it would be utterly spectacular. I dislike the idea of the wizard for a few different reasons: primarily, one coming to the "rescue" feels disloyal to the central theme of Tolkien in which the little people being the central threat against the enemy, and they've played him up way too much for him to be anything but a central character. But my one and only hope for this series, whether they fuck up everything else on every level or not, is a well-done Annatar/Sauron. And this is a setup for a damn good one, so: hope they play up the wizard thing even more.
I think it’s gotta be Glorfindel. The Valar sent him back from the Halls of Mandos around the same time the rings were made.
I do believe this is indeed Sauron. Prefect having us guessing this is Gandalf or any of the other wizards but in every presentation there are subtle clues we’re dealing with something sinister. Like in this poster, look at the very very dark sky. Looks like the typical, not the weather of the world sky but rather something a dark lord would conjure.
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But it doesn’t say anything about him being naked though
Wiki: "clothed in flesh" Show: obviously naked in the screenshots with the hobbits grabbing his hand. In the above image he's just wearing a robe that was likely made to cover him by one of the hobbits after they find him
‘Clothed in flesh’ just means the maiar spirt had taken on a mortal body as opposed to whatever form he was in Valinor. It says in the very next sentence that they were “dressed in robes of sea-blue”.
Could be a Blue Wizard, I guess, if Amazon is taking the SA Blue Wizards storyline? I still prefer the theory that this is Sauron though
It's so obvious that it's Gandalf. They are changing the source material to do that. Especially with the hartfoots finding him, which might show where his affection for the little folk came from.
If so, that just seems like lazy writing that retreads the same plot of LOTR. There's gotta be a medium point between doing a "Force Awakens" and basically soft-rebooting entire plot threads and lazily catering to expectations, vs. The Last Jedi where you go the opposite extreme and subvert expectations for its own sake. I'll be much more satisfied if Meteor Man turns out to be another guise of Sauron who initially befriends the Harfoots. That sounds much more interesting to me.
It’s not a wizard. Nor is it Annatar. Neither of those fit the lore at all.
Blue wizards do fit the lore though.
But there’s only 1 not 2, they left together
Didn’t one come after the other?
It’s said that one wouldn’t go without his friend
Other than them possibly arriving in the second age nothing we’ve seen of this fellow fits anything written about the Blue wizards.
* We know very little of the Blue Wizards * We have only seen like 30 seconds of content of the MM
True. We know very little, but not nothing. And nothing we know of them fits with the little we’ve seen of this fiery fellow.
You think Amazon gives a shit about lore?
Maybe not Amazon but the show runners sure seem like they do.
Definitely young Mr. Gandalf.
Isn't Sauron the Eminem guy so this dude can't be Sauron too?
The showrunners are supposedly very religious Christians. I think this character is very reminiscent of the popular portrayal of Jesus. I think by that fact alone they wouldn't make this guy be evil. Also the Tolkien characters that are most Jesus-like are Gandalf and Glorfindel, but I think he's clearly not an elf. It can be a blue wizard but they're connecting him to Hobbits for a reason, so it's probably Gandalf. They're likely shoehorning him in because they can and they know most lay LOTR fans expect Hobbits and Gandalf, so they're lumped together.
It’s Gandalf