49 Fun Facts About The Rings of Power

The Rings of Power streams on which service?

Prime Video. Founder Jeff Bezos, a lifelong Tolkien fan, had told his studio to find the next Game of Thrones, and within weeks it was bidding for the screen rights to Middle-earth.

In which Age of Middle-earth is The Rings of Power set?

The Second Age. Tolkien spread its events over thousands of years, so the writers squeezed them into a single period; otherwise, they said, the human characters would be dying off every season.

Which part of The Lord of the Rings supplies most of the story told in The Rings of Power?

The appendices. The screen rights covered only that novel and The Hobbit, so the writers gathered every mention of the era from the notes at the back of the book and bridged the gaps with invention; The Silmarillion was off limits.

Who are the two showrunners of The Rings of Power?

J. D. Payne and Patrick McKay. Friends since a school debate team, they had no produced credit between them when their pitch, to stretch the films' five-minute prologue across five seasons, beat dozens of better-known rivals.

Which director, their former boss, put in a word that helped The Rings of Power's untested showrunners win the job?

J. J. Abrams. The pair had worked at his company, where they developed a Star Trek film that was never made; they asked him to ring the studio on their behalf and felt the call moved the needle.

In The Rings of Power, which rare ore mined in Khazad-dûm do the Elves believe can save them from fading?

Mithril. Prince Durin has secretly struck a vein of it, and once Elrond learns that his own people cannot survive without it, their friendship is caught between two kingdoms.

Roughly how much did the first season of The Rings of Power cost to produce?

$465 million. Part of the reason was that the bill covered sets, costumes and infrastructure built to serve the later seasons as well.

Which company reportedly pitched the Tolkien estate a remake of Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings films and was turned down?

HBO. By insiders' accounts the estate had no wish to go back over the films' ground, and a rival's plan for a Marvel-style family of spin-off shows 'completely freaked out the estate'.

Who composed the main title theme for The Rings of Power?

Howard Shore. The three-time Oscar winner for the film trilogy wrote only the main title; the rest of the music came from another composer working separately, who was struck by how well the two fitted together.

Who composed the original score for The Rings of Power?

Bear McCreary. He spent two months writing themes from the scripts alone, some fifteen of them, before he had seen any footage; it was, he said, like writing a symphony.

Where was the first season of The Rings of Power filmed?

New Zealand. It had been home to Peter Jackson's film trilogies too, but a week after the long, Covid-interrupted shoot wrapped, the studio announced that every later season would be made in the United Kingdom.

Late in season 1 of The Rings of Power, the Southlands are given which new name?

Mordor. The Orcs' leader wanted a land of their own, so a dam was opened to flood the tunnels dug beneath a volcano, and the eruption buried the Southlands in ash.

Whose death at the start of The Rings of Power sets Galadriel on her long hunt for Sauron?

Her brother's. Finrod dies hunting Sauron in the opening minutes, and Galadriel takes up his search so fiercely that she keeps at it long after her own king has declared the war over.

How does the Stranger arrive in Middle-earth in the first episode of The Rings of Power?

Inside a falling meteor. The young Harfoot Nori finds him lying in the burning crater, unable to speak her language, and hides him from the rest of her wary people.

What does Queen Regent Míriel lose in the volcanic eruption near the end of season 1 of The Rings of Power?

Her sight. She sails home blind, and in season 2 her rivals argue that a queen who cannot see is unfit to rule, the opening her cousin Pharazôn needs to take the throne.

Who plays Galadriel in The Rings of Power?

Morfydd Clark. Her Galadriel is thousands of years younger than the serene queen Cate Blanchett played in the films: an angry, brash commander of armies who refuses to believe the war is over.

Who plays the young Elrond in The Rings of Power?

Robert Aramayo. Younger selves are his line: in Game of Thrones he was the young Ned Stark, and here his Elrond is an ambitious politician long before he becomes the grave lord of Rivendell.

Which actor was cast in a lead role in The Rings of Power but left before filming over a scheduling clash?

Will Poulter. He had landed what was called one of the most sought-after young roles in Hollywood, known only by the code name Beldor, before the clash forced him out; the part turned out to be Elrond.

Which actor is revealed to be playing Sauron in The Rings of Power's first-season finale?

Charlie Vickers. The writers hid Sauron inside an invented character so that even Tolkien's readers could be fooled, and were delighted when fans spent the season suspecting half the cast.

In season 1 of The Rings of Power, Sauron's human disguise goes by what name?

Halbrand. The castaway Galadriel meets on a raft at sea lets her believe he is the lost king of the Southlands, and is even hailed as its king, before the mask comes off.

What Elven alias does Sauron adopt in season 2 of The Rings of Power?

Annatar. It means Lord of Gifts, and the fair-haired Elf who bears it arrives claiming to be an envoy of the Valar, the better to guide the making of more Rings of Power.

Which actor plays an earlier form of Sauron in the flashback that opens season 2 of The Rings of Power?

Jack Lowden. In the flashback his Sauron is cut down by Adar and the Orcs just as he claims the crown, and it takes his spirit thousands of years to build the body viewers already know.

The Rings of Power's second-season finale confirms that the Stranger is which wizard?

Gandalf. His halfling friends keep calling him 'Grand-Elf', and when he finally finds his staff he guesses that this is the name he will come to be known by.

Which actor plays Tom Bombadil in season 2 of The Rings of Power?

Rory Kinnear. Peter Jackson's films cut the singing forest-dweller altogether; the series plants him far from his usual woods, in a desert home where he steers the Stranger toward a staff and a destiny.

In The Rings of Power, the Orcs call their Elven leader Adar, an Elvish word meaning what?

Father. A corrupted Elf himself, he fights to win the Orcs a land where they can live free; Sam Hazeldine took the part over from Joseph Mawle in season 2.

Khazad-dûm, the Dwarf kingdom seen at its height in The Rings of Power, is better known by which later name?

Moria. The films show it as a dark, abandoned ruin; the series visits thousands of years earlier, when its halls were still full of light, food and music.

Which creature rises from the mines to attack King Durin III in The Rings of Power?

Balrog. Made greedy by his new ring, the king digs too deep; he comes to his senses in time to save his son, leaping at the fire-demon with his axe as the cavern comes down.

Which eastern land do the Stranger, Nori and Poppy travel to in season 2 of The Rings of Power?

Rhûn. The series imagines the far east of Middle-earth as a land that was once green and Eden-like and is now a dead wasteland, where the travellers stumble on a hidden canyon of halflings.

In The Rings of Power, the Harfoots are ancestors of which better-known people of Middle-earth?

Hobbits. Tolkien wrote that hobbits did nothing noteworthy before the Third Age, so the series shows their ancestors as wanderers who survive by staying hidden, long before there is a Shire.

In The Rings of Power, Sauron was once the chief servant of which defeated Dark Lord?

Morgoth. The series opens just after his fall, and in season 2 his old crown turns up as a weapon, the one thing shown to have been able to destroy Sauron's earlier body.

In The Rings of Power, what object shows Míriel a vision of Númenor destroyed by a great wave?

A palantír. The seeing-stone is an Elvish relic in a kingdom that has turned against the Elves, so she consults it in secret, and in season 2 her use of it is exposed to turn the people against her.

Which illustrator, a designer on Peter Jackson's film trilogies, returned for The Rings of Power?

John Howe. The showrunners wanted a Middle-earth that would sit comfortably beside the films, 'different but familiar', and counted themselves lucky that veterans like him brought their experience of that world.

In season 2 of The Rings of Power, what does Sauron secretly put into the nine rings made for Men?

His own blood. He hands it over as a box of precious ore, and the smith learns the truth only when he sees through the illusion that Sauron has wrapped around his forge.

Which singer performs "Where the Shadows Lie" over the end credits of The Rings of Power's first-season finale?

Fiona Apple. The words are Tolkien's own Ring Verse, set to a tune the composer had slipped into the very first episode as an instrumental; it was her first new music since Fetch the Bolt Cutters.

In season 1 of The Rings of Power, the broken sword that the Orcs are hunting turns out to be what?

A key. A traitor uses it to unlock a dam, and the water that pours through the Orcs' tunnels into the heart of a volcano sets off the eruption that changes the land for good.

Which crew hiring, revealed in 2020, made fans fear The Rings of Power would copy Game of Thrones?

An intimacy coordinator. Her name on the crew list had Tolkien fans bracing for graphic sex scenes, until the showrunners promised a series that eleven-year-olds could watch.

Which creature's arrival at Míriel's coronation in The Rings of Power is claimed as an omen for her rival?

A great eagle. One had appeared at the last king's crowning as a sign of favour; this time, amid a riot, a rival's ally shouts that the bird has come for Pharazôn, and the chanting crowd hands him the throne.

Who rules as High King of the Elves in The Rings of Power?

Gil-galad. Benjamin Walker plays him as a cautious statesman who declares the war won and tries to send Galadriel away across the sea with honours rather than let her go on hunting Sauron.

Which sailor in The Rings of Power later cuts the Ring from Sauron's hand?

Isildur. Maxim Baldry plays him as a young sailor years before the deed, and long before the Ring he wins betrays him to his death.

Which British comedian plays the Harfoot leader Sadoc Burrows in The Rings of Power?

Lenny Henry. The co-founder of Comic Relief plays the elder who guides the Harfoots' migrations, until the Mystics who come hunting the Stranger kill him at the end of the first season.

Which character did Nazanin Boniadi play before choosing not to return for season 2 of The Rings of Power?

Bronwyn. The part was not recast: season 2 opens with the healer already dead, leaving her son Theo and the Elf who loved her, Arondir, to grieve.

Which actor was cast as Celeborn, Galadriel's husband, for season 3 of The Rings of Power?

Jamie Campbell Bower. Best known as the monstrous Vecna of Stranger Things, he plays against type as what he calls a lover-boy: the Elf lord Galadriel has been parted from for centuries.

Season 2 of The Rings of Power builds to a three-episode siege of which Elven realm?

Eregion. It is the land of the Elven-smiths, where the rings were forged; Sauron lures an Orc army there to do his fighting for him, and when its walls fall the survivors flee to a hidden valley in the north.

In season 2 of The Rings of Power, which Elven shipwright is entrusted with one of the three Elven rings?

Círdan. Elrond brings him the rings and begs him to destroy them, and the oldest Elf in Middle-earth agrees, until one look convinces him they are perfect and he puts one on himself.

Which sword, later famous as the blade that was broken, does Elendil carry in The Rings of Power?

Narsil. Elendil takes it with him as he flees into hiding at the end of season 2; a shard of it will one day cut the One Ring from Sauron's hand, and reforged it becomes Aragorn's Andúril.

Which two actors voice the Ents in season 2 of The Rings of Power?

Jim Broadbent and Olivia Williams. They voice Snaggleroot and Winterbloom, tree-herders who seize a band of men for felling the forest and free them only when the Elf Arondir vows to protect it.

Which rival fantasy series premiered less than two weeks before The Rings of Power in 2022?

House of the Dragon. The Game of Thrones spin-off was dated only months ahead, by which time the showrunners had been at work for years, and they grew weary of a press that talked of little but Dragon versus Rings.

In the first episode of The Rings of Power, Galadriel leaps from a ship rather than sail on to which blessed realm?

Valinor. The voyage is meant as an honour, an eternal life at peace; she jumps overboard as its light opens before her and starts swimming back toward Middle-earth to go on hunting Sauron.

Who kills Adar in the season 2 finale of The Rings of Power?

His own Orcs. Tired of being marched to their deaths, they are won over by Sauron and stab their leader to death, just as he and they had once stabbed Sauron.