The Rings of Power Trivia
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49 free The Rings of Power trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power is the most expensive television series ever made: Amazon paid close to $250 million for the rights in 2017, committed to five seasons and at least a billion dollars, and spent $465 million on the first season alone in New Zealand. Showrunners J. D. Payne and Patrick McKay built their story from the appendices of The Lord of the Rings, compressing the Second Age into a few years so that the forging of the rings, the rise of Sauron and the fall of Númenor could share a screen. This quiz covers the production and the story: the rights auction that HBO and Netflix lost, Howard Shore's theme and Bear McCreary's score, Morfydd Clark and Robert Aramayo as young Galadriel and Elrond, the Halbrand twist, Annatar, the Stranger's reveal as Gandalf, Rhûn and Tom Bombadil, the recasts of Celebrimbor and Adar, the cymatic title sequence, Fiona Apple's closing song and the viewing figures Amazon did and did not want to talk about. Fifty questions, four options each, with a short explanation after every answer. Play in sets of ten or print it for a Middle-earth quiz night.
30 of 49 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The Rings of Power streams on which service?
Prime Video
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.
Q 02In which Age of Middle-earth is The Rings of Power set?
the Second Age
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.
Q 03Which part of The Lord of the Rings supplies most of the story told in The Rings of Power?
The appendices
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.
Q 04Who are the two showrunners of The Rings of Power?
J. D. Payne and Patrick McKay
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.
Q 05Which director, their former boss, put in a word that helped The Rings of Power's untested showrunners win the job?
J. J. Abrams
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.
Q 06In The Rings of Power, which rare ore mined in Khazad-dûm do the Elves believe can save them from fading?
Mithril
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.
Q 07Roughly how much did the first season of The Rings of Power cost to produce?
$465 million
$465 million. Part of the reason was that the bill covered sets, costumes and infrastructure built to serve the later seasons as well.
Q 08Which company reportedly pitched the Tolkien estate a remake of Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings films and was turned down?
HBO
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'.
Q 09Who composed the main title theme for The Rings of Power?
Howard Shore
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.
Q 10Who composed the original score for The Rings of Power?
Bear McCreary
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.
Q 11Where was the first season of The Rings of Power filmed?
New Zealand
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.
Q 12Late in season 1 of The Rings of Power, the Southlands are given which new name?
Mordor
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.
Q 13Whose death at the start of The Rings of Power sets Galadriel on her long hunt for Sauron?
Her brother's
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.
Q 21What Elven alias does Sauron adopt in season 2 of The Rings of Power?
Annatar
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.
Q 22Which actor plays an earlier form of Sauron in the flashback that opens season 2 of The Rings of Power?
Jack Lowden
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.
Q 23The Rings of Power's second-season finale confirms that the Stranger is which wizard?
Gandalf
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.
Q 14How does the Stranger arrive in Middle-earth in the first episode of The Rings of Power?
Inside a falling meteor
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.
Q 15What does Queen Regent Míriel lose in the volcanic eruption near the end of season 1 of The Rings of Power?
Her sight
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.
Q 16Who plays Galadriel in The Rings of Power?
Morfydd Clark
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.
Q 17Who plays the young Elrond in The Rings of Power?
Robert Aramayo
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.
Q 18Which actor was cast in a lead role in The Rings of Power but left before filming over a scheduling clash?
Will Poulter
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.
Q 19Which actor is revealed to be playing Sauron in The Rings of Power's first-season finale?
Charlie Vickers
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.
Q 20In season 1 of The Rings of Power, Sauron's human disguise goes by what name?
Halbrand
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.
Q 24Which actor plays Tom Bombadil in season 2 of The Rings of Power?
Rory Kinnear
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.
Q 25In The Rings of Power, the Orcs call their Elven leader Adar, an Elvish word meaning what?
Father
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.
Q 26Khazad-dûm, the Dwarf kingdom seen at its height in The Rings of Power, is better known by which later name?
Moria
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.
Q 27Which creature rises from the mines to attack King Durin III in The Rings of Power?
Balrog
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.
Q 28Which eastern land do the Stranger, Nori and Poppy travel to in season 2 of The Rings of Power?
Rhûn
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.
Q 29In The Rings of Power, the Harfoots are ancestors of which better-known people of Middle-earth?
Hobbits
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.
Q 30In The Rings of Power, Sauron was once the chief servant of which defeated Dark Lord?
Morgoth
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.