The Rings Of Power's New Wizard Is Based On A Single Line Of Tolkien Lore

You wait an entire season for one wizard to come along, then two arrive at once. That's how the magical landscape has unfolded in The Rings of Power, at least. Daniel Weyman arrived as "The Stranger," a mysterious figure with a badly-timed bout of amnesia, in Prime Video's first season, and their arc in season 2 was spent in Wizardry 101 under the tutelage of Tom Bombadil. Heading into The Rings of Power season 3, it is now confirmed (not that viewers hadn't figured it out already) that Weyman is actually playing an early version of Gandalf.

Alas, Middle-earth's chief purveyor of illicit fireworks isn't the only magic show in town. The Rings of Power season 2 also introduced Ciarán Hinds as a darker wizard amassing acolytes and causing chaos in the land of Rhûn. The stage is set for these two conjurers to lock staffs in The Rings of Power season 3, with Gandalf deeming victory against his shady counterpart a crucial step on the road to self-discovery.

The presence of one wizard in Middle-earth's Second Age throws a canon-spanner in the works. Two wizards is a Took-sized headache. And while there are corners of Tolkien's writings that allude toward the possibility of Istari knocking around this early in the timeline, prevailing canon maintains that all five arrived in the Third Age as Valinor's response to Sauron rapidly growing in power. Plenty of lore-based questions to answer, then, but a key line from Tolkien does some heavy lifting in terms of providing an explanation for The Rings of Power's Dark Wizard.

Who Is The Rings Of Power's Dark Wizard Supposed To Be?

It seemed for all the world like the Dark Wizard was Saruman in The Rings of Power's second season.

The Stranger had looked like Gandalf, spoken like Gandalf, acted like Gandalf, and turned out to be Gandalf. It only made sense that the Dark Wizard looking like Saruman, speaking like Saruman, and acting like Saruman would result in him being unveiled as Saruman.

After all, this villainous cult leader had been plotting to overtake Sauron as Middle-earth's most powerful godlike force, and even offered Gandalf an opportunity to come along for the ride. The Dark Wizard also appeared to sit higher on the spell-casting pecking order than his Grey associate, so parallels to Saruman were not in short supply. Anyone would be forgiven for assuming The Rings of Power was playing out The Lord of the Rings' Gandalf vs. Saruman rivalry a few thousand years ahead of schedule, implying that they were destined to be rivals forever.

Not according to The Rings of Power's showrunners.

In a 2024 Q&A session on Reddit, Patrick McKay and JD Payne explained,

We know there are five wizards talked about in The Lord of the Rings. One of them is Saruman, one of them is Gandalf, one of them is Radagast, and then there are two others. It is our expectation that he [the Dark Wizard] will be one of those two others.

Ciarán Hinds is playing one of Tolkien's blue wizards, then. The showrunners could be misdirecting us, but a face-value interpretation of their answer pretty conclusively identifies The Rings of Power's Dark Wizard as either Alatar and Pallando, the blue wizards.

This broadly makes sense, since the blue wizards canonically did travel east to Rhûn, and there's stronger evidence to suggest they first appeared in Middle-earth during the Second Age. The oliphaunt in the room is The Rings of Power's claim that one of Tolkien's blue wizards actually 'did a Saruman' and broke bad, and this is where one line from the legendarium comes into play.

How Tolkien Lore Can Explain A Blue Wizard Being Evil In The Rings Of Power

Tolkien never fully explained what became of the blue wizards before, during, and after the War of the Ring. It is written that they were sent to the further locales of Middle-earth (Rhûn included) to disrupt Sauron's supporters dwelling there, but Tolkien offers conflicting accounts of their success. Those feeling generous could say the blue wizards prevented Sauron from gathering an even bigger army in The Return of the King; others could say Alatar and Pallando wasted two seats on the boat to Middle-earth.

Still, there's a world of difference between failure to complete a mission and switching to the other team.

Tolkien's Unfinished Tales includes a passage that claims Gandalf was the only member of the Istari who "remained faithful," but, again, this doesn't automatically condemn the blue wizards as villains. It might just mean they, like Radagast, got distracted by squirrels.

No, the main line from Tolkien that condemns the blue wizards to villainy, and that is possibly fueling The Rings of Power's uniquely dark depiction of them, is: "I suspect they were founders or beginners of secret cults and magic traditions that outlasted the fall of Sauron."

Radagast abandoning Middle-earth to its fate because he discovered animals is one thing, but when Tolkien starts talking about the two blue wizards not remaining faithful because they were too busy starting magical cults, the conversation takes a darker turn. This doesn't sound like some harmless magicians' circle with card tricks and baggy sleeves, and is perhaps how The Rings of Power will justify its revelatory stance that one of the blue wizards became corrupted.

​​​​​​​There's Still One Problem With A Blue Wizard Turning Evil

And yet the ointment still isn't without flies. Tolkien's comments on the failure, faithlessness, and up-to-no-good-ness of the blue wizards all concern the period after they travel to Middle-earth with Gandalf, Saruman, and Radagast in the Third Age. The Rings of Power must be suggesting that one of the blue wizards started good, became bad during the Second Age, redeemed himself enough to deserve a second chance in the Third, then repeated his earlier mistake of hunkering down in Rhûn starting cults around the time of The Lord of the Rings.

In any scenario, making Ciarán Hinds a blue wizard is destined to cause canon-based headaches. Said headaches wouldn't ease much if The Rings of Power revealed the Dark Wizard as Saruman either, with that solution creating problems of its own. All things considered, The Rings of Power must surely be tempted to opt for the safest route and confirm its villainous magician as some secret sixth Istar that The Lord of the Rings forgot.