Rings of Power S2E2: how does Sauron reveal himself as Annatar?

The second episode of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power season 2 (2024), starring Morfydd Clark, Charlie Vickers and Robert Aramayo, is titled 'Where the Stars Are Strange.' It is packed with visual details, nods to Tolkien's lore and connections hidden in the music. It is also the episode where Sauron finally presents himself to Celebrimbor as Annatar, and I think the visual majesty of that moment is undeniably great, even if a few things about how the show gets there bother me.

Darkness spreads from Mount Doom toward Khazad-dûm

The episode opens on the eye-shaped lava pool in Mount Doom. There is an interesting effect where blackness spreads from Mount Doom up through the map toward Khazad-dûm. That suggests it is the cancer from Mordor that is disrupting the dwarf kingdom.

While we follow that darkness, we dissolve into the mountains and its beams of light, and we follow those instead. I think that's an interesting metaphor for this season: even light can be deceptive, because it is coming from a darkness the characters cannot see. We follow the light angled from the mirrors the dwarves use to grow crops in the caverns, as we saw in season 1. It's an essential part of dwarven agriculture.

After mining mithril with Elrond against his father's wishes, Prince Durin IV is now an outcast, shopping for cavern produce with Disa. She tells him, "I'm bound to the dwarf I love and I wouldn't trade his heart for a mind full of fire opals." You hear the words bound and bind a lot, and it's an interesting recurring word that reminds us of the ring verse line "in the darkness bind them." Then an earthquake causes a huge chunk of rock to smash the bridge. If you look closely, at least nine dwarves die immediately.

The new title sequence forms 19 rings and a bloodshot eye

Season 2 has an updated opening title sequence. The earth tones of the sand in season 1 have shifted to red. That could connote something as simple as blood, but I see it as the red wine of Sauron intoxicating all of these characters through this grapevine.

The sands form 19 rings: three for the elves, seven for the dwarves and nine for men. We don't see the One Ring that is forged elsewhere, because the story hasn't gotten there yet. Next the sand forms a tree shape, maybe the golden great tree in Lindon, or the tree of friendship that Elrond gave Durin, or maybe the White Tree of Númenor. Then comes a crown beneath the seven stars of Durin, the symbol of Khazad-dûm, followed by an elegant archway. Those are the Doors of Durin, which at the time I thought we were going to see made on this series.

After that we see the horns of a Balrog, and finally the red iris of an eye, with the red grains forming bloody veins. It's like a bloodshot eye that has been open and staring at us for far too long. There is more focus in these season 2 credits on images associated with Khazad-dûm, and I think they want us to link Disa's singing to the song of the Ainur.

Galadriel's dream turns Celebrimbor into his own headstone

We find Galadriel in a dream, planting seeds at the memorial tree of her brother Finrod. She has gotten a glow up to go with her fancy ring, Nenya, with her hair braided in an interesting configuration and a golden leaf circlet. Celebrimbor appears to announce an unexpected visitor, and Sauron's voice echoes in her mind.

The seeds she planted turn out to be roots for Sauron's deadly grasp. Celebrimbor speaks the ring verse in Sindarin as the roots strangle and impale his body and turn him into wood, transforming him into essentially his own headstone. I think Galadriel is reading Sauron's mind in this moment about what he plans to do to Celebrimbor when he's done with him, but also seeing a possible future.

It's another example of Sauron taking nature, light, water and trees, wholesome and healthy things, and twisting them into sinister forces. Galadriel then warns Gil-galad that Sauron needs not armies but rings, and Gil-galad immediately covers Vilya, as if afraid someone will take his precious from him. I fully expected him to go full Bilbo.

Annatar plays on elven hospitality, and the Dark Wizard in Rhûn

Sauron turns his back to Celebrimbor's assistant to show the wounds from his torture, making sure to fan out the tear in his clothes so she can see the wound clearly. He knows these elves will take pity on him and appeal to their customs of hospitality.

In Rhûn we visit the Dark Wizard's fortress. We see a blood ritual with white-winged moths that the Dark Wizard conjures back into his acolyte from season 1. The light causes her cloak to look like the folded wings of a moth, and I love that detail. He tells her, "the blood I wasted to bring you before me should have been spent on more useful servants." I'm curious to know what's in the back room of that fortress.

Some are speculating that this character could be Saruman. But the fact that he is already involved with dark deeds doesn't line up with what we know about Saruman's backstory. He came up as a very by-the-books wizard until Sauron infected his mind in the Third Age.

Hobbit names for the Stranger and the Mad Max masks

Nori and Poppy pitch names for the Stranger, and these are Hobbit names pulled from the wider lore. One is a Brandybuck from Lord of the Rings Online. There's Andwise Roper, who is Samwise Gamgee's uncle. Then there is Fredegar "Fatty" Bolger, a hobbit from the books who was friends with Merry and the others but was too scared to go with them when they left the Shire.

The desert riders who pursue them for the Dark Wizard had their Mad Max masks added in post-production, according to the showrunners. That could be why the masks look a little too shiny, or too steampunk, for Middle-earth.

Narvi and Disa's failing song in Khazad-dûm

We see the exterior gates of Khazad-dûm after the earthquake, and one of the dwarf statues that was there in an earlier shot has now crumbled. We also meet the dwarf Narvi, whose name will one day appear alongside Celebrimbor's on the Doors of Durin, so I assumed this character was going to return.

Disa's stone singing only makes things worse. Clearly the return of Sauron was so discordant that it ruined the harmonic connection between the dwarves and the rocks. She's like the person at the concert trying to sing along with Taylor or Olivia who is so tone deaf they ruin the experience for everyone.

Galadriel, Elrond and Sauron's theme on the harp

Galadriel meets Elrond as he works on a boat. I love that we go from an initial shot of him sanding something small in the foreground to a reverse shot showing he has whittled down an entire tree trunk. It's like in the Will Ferrell movie Elf, when we see how fast elves are expected to build toys. The same rules apply to the toiling of elves in Middle-earth.

Galadriel says, "Sauron used me and under his hand I was played like a harp to a melody not of my choosing." The reply is that it was entirely of her choosing, because Sauron looked inside her and plucked the very song of her soul, note by note. In this moment, composer Bear McCreary plays Sauron's theme on a harp in the background. It's another example of Sauron's melodic manipulation.

Círdan and Elrond debate separating the art from the artist

Círdan tells Elrond that the rings themselves can still be a pure source of good, despite the corrupted context that created them: "judge the work and leave judgment concerning those who wrought it to the judge who sees all things."

Knowing that a writers' room produced this line, it touches on the separate the art from the artist debate that fans of many properties are struggling with nowadays. When you have authors like J.K. Rowling taking certain stances online, is it still okay to love Harry Potter? Of course it is, but you do have to do some mental compartmentalization, and not all people, especially not all age groups, are capable of that. As Círdan says, it takes humility, and that humility takes decades of life experience.

Elrond, as the younger of the two, speaks for the part of society insisting on purity tests. I love this whole conversation, because I don't think either character is wrong, but ultimately history will prove Elrond to be the more correct of the two. Afterward, Círdan sticks his hand bearing Narya into the water to command some fish, and I love the scared little jump Elrond does when a fish leaps out.

Elsewhere, the Stranger finds the object from his vision being used as a brace pole at a well. He uses it to create a whirlwind that takes out the Dark Wizard's riders, but it also blows his Harfoot friends away.

Ithildin, the moonlight and the worst umbrella ever

Celebrimbor shows his assistant his latest invention, which he calls ithildin, a way to draw the last sliver of mithril out of the moonlight that is all but invisible. Ithildin is what was on the Doors of Durin in The Fellowship of the Ring, which only revealed itself in the moonlight.

Sauron too is revealed in the moonlight down in the courtyard, focusing his concentration on summoning the rainstorm. We have to acknowledge that this is the worst umbrella design ever. It doesn't keep the person holding it dry, and Celebrimbor looks soaked too, so how useful is it?

Sauron flatters Celebrimbor as a craftsman

Sauron manipulates Celebrimbor by appealing to him as a craftsman who wants credit for his work above all else. He calls it the oldest tale there is: true creators toil till their knuckles bleed, and then others come along, take the profits and forget all about them. Again, this show was written by a writers' room as the 2023 Writers Guild strike was looming.

Sauron notices Celebrimbor weeping on learning that his three rings worked, and he takes that moment to make his move, announcing himself as a messenger from the Valar. He extinguishes every light source in the room, blazes the hearth and presents himself in the form of Annatar: "Never again will the world overlook you as the mere scion of Fëanor, but forevermore revere you, the Lord of the Rings."

Annatar's reveal is visually majestic, but the title drop was too much

I did not need Annatar to say "the Lord of the Rings." We get it. But the visual majesty of this whole presentation is undeniably great. He looks like an angel coming from heaven, and they even darken his face with the light beyond him. It's not his appearance that changes; it's the light he has dressed himself in. Charlie Vickers has also dropped the Southlander accent and speaks in a posh English brogue, the kind the actors playing elves use.

For context, Tolkien described Sauron as wearing the fairest form he could contrive, posing as an emissary of the Valar sent to Middle-earth, or ordered by them to remain there, to give aid to the elves. In another passage, Sauron took for himself the name Annatar, the Lord of Gifts. Halbrand was an invention of the show, so when Charlie Vickers appeared in the trailers wearing only a wig, various skeptics, including me, wondered how Celebrimbor would not recognize Halbrand. This is why we have to be patient and wait for these shows to provide the answers.

Sauron earns Celebrimbor's trust by telling partial truths and appealing to his ego, then puts on this spectacle to look like he carries the light of the Valar. It's so blinding, and Celebrimbor is so needy of validation, that it works. We've been in this position before, blinded by problematic people in our lives who are in plain sight, because we need them to be what we want them to be. But make no mistake: this form of Annatar comes not from the sunlight but from fire, no different than the fires of Mount Doom.

I have to say that in these first few episodes, I was not crazy about the contrived communication barriers keeping Celebrimbor, Galadriel, Elrond, Círdan, Gil-galad and Lindon all unable to see Annatar for who he is. Still, I was curious to see whether this charade would work on them too, or whether his light would reshape reality so they no longer see the face of Halbrand at all.