Rings of Power episodes 3 and 4: Halbrand Sauron clues

Episodes 3 and 4 of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power are packed with easy-to-miss details, and the clearest pattern running through them points, I think, to Halbrand secretly being Sauron. There are also nods to Narsil, the palantír, Mordor and Tolkien's own nightmare of a great wave.

The series premiered in 2022, starring Morfydd Clark, Robert Aramayo and Charlie Vickers. I love this series, and there's so much here to appreciate. What follows covers the details from Episode 3 that were easy to miss, then goes deeper into Episode 4.

The Rings of Power title sequence shows the Ainur singing Arda into being

Creative director Anthony Vitagliano confirmed that the look of the opening titles was inspired by Chladni figures. These are patterns in which sand is vibrated by sound to show different wavelengths, a phenomenon called cymatics.

Plains of Yonder, the production company that made the sequence, explained that it's meant to show Tolkien's Ainur. These are the angelic spirits whose songs constructed the world of Arda. So when the sands form the Two Trees of Valinor, we're seeing this world's creation myth. Howard Shore's score plays the songs of the Ainur, until a darker horn section snakes in to represent the invasive evil of Morgoth and Sauron.

Arondir's storyline points toward the future Mordor and the White Tree

Arondir is dragged into the tunnels the Orcs have been digging under the Southlands the whole time, turning the region into what we now know will be the future Mordor. Back in Episode 1, the Ostirith watchtower overlooking the Southlands lines up perfectly with a distant peak. That volcano is a likely candidate for Mount Doom.

The opening shot shows Arondir taking in the sunlight through the light-blocking tarps overhead. He watches little beams annoy the Orcs and hears them bicker about who gets sunlight duty. You can see him gradually forming the plan he carries out later in the episode: slicing that tarp open to expose them all to sunlight.

Later, the map crossfades from a tree into the live-action tree that the captive elf diggers make a stand to protect. Trees are hugely significant to elves and to Tolkien; look no further than the Ents. These elves are scarred by what happened to their ancestors with the Trees of Valinor. When his friend is killed, Arondir sadly tells him a line in Quenya that translates to forgive me.

Later, Míriel talks about the White Tree being descended from pieces of the Trees of Valinor. The seeds of this tree will later be carried to Middle-earth by Isildur to plant the White Tree in Gondor, which we see in Minas Tirith in Peter Jackson's Return of the King. That tree starts off dead, then begins to blossom again when Aragorn returns. In Tolkien's writing, though, Aragorn physically replants a sapling. Tolkien loves trees.

Adar is most likely a minion of Sauron, not Sauron himself

Back in the trench, Revion speculates about Adar: "Sauron was said to have many names in days of old. Perhaps this is one of them." The first part of that line looked like ADR added in postproduction. We don't see the actor's face on screen when he says it, and the audio sounds slightly different. That suggests to me it's an important line the producers needed in there to set up something else.

The closing shot teases Adar, played by Joseph Mawle, Benjen Stark from Game of Thrones. He himself is most likely not Sauron. His name translates to father, because it's the name given to him by the Orcs he birthed. He's more likely a minion of Sauron, or someone working alongside Sauron toward the same objective.

Halbrand steals Finrod's dagger from Elendil

In the Galadriel storyline, Galadriel wakes on the ship and immediately reaches for Finrod's dagger at her side. It's not there. Halbrand, always observant, notices how desperate she is to get it back, how afraid she is to be without it, and how he can make himself indispensable by quelling that fear.

Later we see him eyeing that dagger at Elendil's side. When he hugs Elendil in the throne room, he swipes it. Right after, the dagger is gone from Elendil's side, and you can make out Halbrand holding it flush against his arm as they walk up the steps. He does a similar sleight of hand with the guild pin later on.

The Eärendil statue in Númenor connects to Elrond, Elros and Frodo

Elendil was a captain of Númenor in this episode. Númenor is a star-shaped island kingdom between Middle-earth and Valinor. The Valar, the gods of this world, gave it to humans for siding with the elves against Morgoth in the previous age. As a result, Númenóreans live extended lives, though not as long as elves.

Towering over the harbor is a statue of Eärendil, father of Elrond and his twin brother Elros, whom we see on a tapestry later. The statue's hand is outstretched in welcome, a contrast to the future statues of the Argonath in Middle-earth. Those will depict an older Isildur and his brother Anárion, Elendil's sons. We haven't met Anárion yet, but the show adds a new character, their sister Eärien.

The statue has a jewel on its crown and a bird beside it representing Elwing, mother of Elrond and Elros, who did take bird form at one point. The way the statue gazes out is exactly how Celebrimbor describes Eärendil in Episode 4: "he had that way of seeing far off."

Elrond speaks about Eärendil sailing alone to Valinor and convincing the Valar to join the war against Morgoth. His deeds were so great that the Valar lifted him beyond the world to carry the evening star across the sky forever. Even Harfoots like Sadoc know the legend. That star is what Galadriel later gifts to Frodo in The Fellowship of the Ring: "I give you the light of Eärendil, our most beloved star."

Halbrand's forging interest is a Sauron clue

As they walk through the kingdom, Halbrand's eyes light up when he passes the forge. He later begs the blacksmith to let him work there, insisting no other man on the island knows the craft better. He even gets into a fight just to get a guild pin so he can work in the forge.

I think the clues point very clearly to Halbrand secretly being Sauron. His interest in forging, his skill at winning people over and his secretly violent nature check all the boxes for a master of deceit who's going to fool all these characters at some point. We're looking for an antichrist, and I think we've got one here. When the men ask his name, he cryptically says it depends on how close they are, which recalls Revion's line about Sauron's many names.

Pharazôn's tunic is covered in the guild pins that the smiths only have one of. That shows he's mastered a number of crafts and areas of civic responsibility.

Isildur hears a voice, and the series may be redeeming him

On the deck of the ship, Isildur hears a female voice, and it happens again in Episode 4, getting him kicked off the crew. He's looking west beyond Númenor's shores toward Valinor, and the thinking here is that this could be the voice the One Ring will speak to him in when it corrupts him at Mount Doom.

Peter Jackson's films framed Isildur's corruption through Galadriel's and Elrond's recounting. But it wasn't pure evil that made him take the ring. He initially took it as a token of the family he had lost in that battle. So I think we're seeing how this series will redeem Isildur. It's not that he was evil; he was weakened by things all men are weakened by.

I like the contrast in these episodes. Isildur helps pull a crewmate back onto the boat, whereas in Episode 2 Halbrand pried his part of the raft away from the others to save himself and doom them all.

Narsil, the palantír room and Sauron's sigil

Míriel gives Elendil a sword, which at first I thought could be Narsil, the sword that shatters and is used by his son Isildur to cut the ring from Sauron's hand. But Narsil does show up later in Episode 4, in the room with the palantír, along with an axe and a swan-decorated shield. I love a room filled with Easter eggs.

Elendil speaks Quenya to Galadriel and explains it's still taught in the Hall of Lore and carved on statues throughout the city, pointing to an elf statue covered by vines. Throughout Númenor, the Elvish iconography has been buried over time. In Episode 4, Eärien and Isildur meet in front of a mural showing elves and men fighting off a sea creature together, but that paint has been left to peel away.

Galadriel connects Sauron's sigil with a map of the Southlands and reads the Black Speech plan to create Mordor. The text is written in a ring around the symbol, like the Elvish inscription on the One Ring.

Elendil tells Isildur that the watery part of this world has a way of healing even deep wounds. That's an interesting choice for seafarers who chant that the sea is always right. Why not just say the sea will heal your wounds? I think it's a nod to Isildur's fate. He'll drown in a river at the end of his life, and when the One Ring parts from him then, in a way it does heal him of that burden.

The Harfoots and another Gandalf clue for the Stranger

Largo is injured and tells Marigold that after their last roll, it was as if the wheels broke out from under him. I like how the Harfoots tie all their references to wheels and the path, because that's their entire cultural identity.

The Harfoots memorialize those lost in the past year's migration, including Poppy's entire family, lost in a landslide. Then they all laugh at a Harfoot who died from bees. Then the Stranger burns the star map and bulldozes through the camp, so Sadoc moves the Brandyfoots to the back of the caravan, which is essentially a death sentence.

The Stranger helps them keep moving, which I see as another Gandalf clue, recalling the moment in Fellowship when Gandalf works out the Elvish word for friend. Those Doors of Durin were designed for the dwarves by Celebrimbor, hence his fascination with Dwarven technology in the previous episode.

The Great Wave of Númenor is Tolkien's own nightmare

Episode 4 opens on a disastrous vision of Númenor being swallowed by the sea. The petals of the White Tree cry the tears of the Valar, their judgment and wrath sinking the kingdom. A pointed balcony crumbles, and if the architecture reminds you of Minas Tirith, that's by design. This branch of humans will establish that city in a later age.

The episode is titled The Great Wave, the same wave of Númenor Faramir references in Tolkien's Return of the King. Tolkien wrote in letters to readers that he was haunted by a recurring nightmare of a wave towering over the green inlands. So Míriel is seeing Tolkien's nightmare come to life. When we cut to her, she isn't waking up; she's already sitting up with her eyes open, because it wasn't a dream. It was a vision from the palantír.

Adar, Theo and the broken sword in the Southlands

Adar introduces himself to Arondir as a fellow Silvan elf from Beleriand, the landmass sunk in the War of Wrath, which may inform why he's so motivated to build a new kingdom in the Southlands.

Bronwyn and the others have fled to the watchtower, recalling the refugees at Helm's Deep. Running out of food, Theo goes back for supplies and gets trapped in the dark. He repels an orc with his broken sword, using his own blood to make it grow, and slices off the orc's fingers with the incomplete blade, another possible nod to Narsil and what it will do to Sauron's hand.

Khazad-dûm, mithril and Celebrimbor's forge

In Lindon, dwarves and elves build Celebrimbor's forge tower. Every wide shot of this show is intricately designed, including the cranes, whose spiral matches the proportions of the golden ratio, showing what genius engineers these dwarves are.

The series also uses light and darkness expertly. When Elrond visits Khazad-dûm, Durin leans close to Disa and tells her they're making great progress in the old mine, and the mirrored light beams of Moria reveal their deception. Disa had earlier taught her kids a chant that serves as the secret password for the old mine. The dwarf guard who asks Elrond if he's lost is Dave Chapman, who performs and voices B2EMO in Andor.

Durin reveals they've been mining mithril, the ore later used in the mail Bilbo gives Frodo. He lets Elrond keep a big chunk, which might be the same mithril Celebrimbor will later use to forge Nenya, the ring Galadriel wears.

Halbrand's advice about fear and the cracking palantír

Galadriel and Halbrand share neighboring cells in Númenor's dungeon, a room with a huge statue of a sea goddess. That means it wasn't always a dungeon. The fact that Númenor needs dungeons at all isn't a great sign; they aren't doing what the Valar intended.

Halbrand offers some wisdom: identify what your opponent most fears, then give them a means of mastering it so you can master them. Come on, Sauron, at least try to hide it better. Sauron will trick men, elves and dwarves into forging 19 rings, mastering their fears, so he can master them with his One Ring.

Míriel unveils the palantír, one of the seven seeing stones made by the Noldor in Valinor, believed to have been made by Fëanor himself. Saruman uses another in The Lord of the Rings. I love the palantír cracking outward and framing Galadriel inside the cracks, as if these visions shatter one's hopes for the future with a prophecy of doom.

Disa's song, Theo's hilt and the case for the Stranger as Gandalf

Arondir saves Theo, whom I would have left in the well. They're saved by sunlight, and as the sun rises we realize the female singing voice has been Disa's, resonating with the mountain as she described in Episode 2. The way the grains vibrate on the stone matches the opening credits: there it was the Ainur creating Arda, here a similar process of music moving the earth.

Waldreg reveals he knew Theo stole the hilt and shows where he'd been using his blood to keep it alive. That suggests without a host it would have died out; one believer is enough to keep the evil alive. Waldreg reads the meteor as a sign of Sauron's return. But what does Waldreg know? It could be that the Valar sent the Stranger not as a sign of doom but as help to face it. I'm still assuming he's an Istar, Gandalf, sent against the Rings and Sauron. I'm also still speculating that Theo becomes one of the Nazgûl.

Míriel's choice and the show's call to faith over fear

As Míriel sends Galadriel away, the White Tree's petals fall everywhere, which she reads as a sign that parting ways is a mistake, so she gives Galadriel an army. Is it the right move? It's impossible to know. We know how these characters will be fooled by Sauron and fail each other.

Yet this show asks us to be led by faith, not fear, because there will be moments of triumph too. It calls to mind Sam's words that even darkness must pass, and that there's some good in this world worth fighting for. I'll take every excuse to bring those words up, because this world is too dark and we all need to hear them as much as possible.