Rings of Power will include War of the Last Alliance and Sauron’s downfall. Rings of Power episode 8, the season finale, answered a lot of questions about the series. We now know for certain that Halbrand is Sauron, and that the Stranger is everyone’s favourite Wizard, Gandalf.
There are still a lot of questions that are unanswered, though. The exact whereabouts of Galadriel’s husband Celeborn, for example. However, some of the biggest questions aren’t about the content of the series itself, but instead about when it will end, and how much it will stick to canon and Tolkien’s lore.
Now, Charlie Vickers, the actor who plays Halbrand (AKA Sauron) has opened up about where his characters journey is due to go in future seasons. In doing so, he revealed that Rings of Power is set to cover the War of the Last Alliance.
Speaking about Sauron’s future to Screen Rant in the aftermath of the season finale, the actor said “He has a sh*tload of rings to make, and he gets to go to Númenor, and he orchestrates the downfall of Númenor. Then he has to take another form and go and fight in the Battle of the Last Alliance. The battle at the end of the Second Age.”
The War of the Last Alliance is the war against Sauron at the end of the Second Age of Middle-earth, when Men and Elves unite to combat the dark lord. It is when Sauron is defeated, and loses the One Ring, which is then taken by Isildur, and lost in the Gladden Fields, before being found by Sméagol.
Of course, people familiar with Tolkien’s writing will know where Sauron’s story leads in Tolkien’s version of the events of Middle-earth. The reason why Vickers’ comments are important, then, is because previously we have not known when the fantasy series Rings of Power story will end, or how closely Rings of Power would follow established canon.
This confirms that Rings of Power will cover Sauron’s downfall – and maybe its aftermath, which sounds like it could be an end point for the TV series. It also confirms that Rings of Power will broadly stick to events as Tolkien wrote them.
That will be good news to fans of Tolkien and the show because it means that audiences will be able to see parts of Middle-earth’s history that have never been shown before. Though, the War of the Last Alliance was shown in the opening prologue in Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings movies.
For more deep dives into Middle-earth, check out our guide to Valinor.