The villain’s manipulative tactics bring out a new complexity in the fantasy drama

For the first season and a half of The Rings of Power, you’d never guess that the show’s greatest strength would turn out to be psychological drama. Yet as Season 2 draws to a close, the most compelling subplot is the twisted interplay between Sauron (Charlie Vickers) and the elven smith Celebrimbor (Charles Edwards), with Sauron — disguised as Annatar, an emissary from the angelic Valar — manipulating Celebrimbor into forging the Rings of Power. This relationship comes to a head in Episode 7, as Celebrimbor belatedly realizes that he’s welcomed a force of destruction into his home.

Over the past two episodes, Sauron has “helped” Celebrimbor focus on his task by trapping him in a magical illusion of peace. Outside the walls of his forge, the city of Eregion is under siege by orcs. By the time Celebrimbor notices the deception, Sauron has already worked his charms on the other elven smiths, spreading the word that Celebrimbor has lost his mind and can no longer be trusted. Thanks to his expert gaslighting and mind control, Eregion is doomed.

Celebrimbor’s tragic downfall is far more interesting than the blockbuster battle raging outside, rooted in a deeply personal sense of anguish. In a perverse way, there’s a hint of that anguish in Sauron as well. Throughout this season, we see flashes of vulnerability and petty impatience behind his controlled facade. Sauron yearns for Galadriel (Morfydd Clark) — whom he views as a potential equal, unlike Celebrimbor. He suppresses visible annoyance at the naivety of Celebrimbor’s protégé, Mirdania (Amelia Kenworthy). And in the scenes where he blames Celebrimbor for his own victimization — a classic abuse tactic — Sauron almost seems to believe his own lies.

“I am but a victim of your obstinance,” he tells Celebrimbor this week. “And you, the true author of your own torment.” He insists that Celebrimbor “chose” to be tormented and “begged” for his advice when creating the rings, twisting the reality that Sauron-as-Annatar was pressuring Celebrimbor every step of the way.

It’s clear that Sauron views Celebrimbor as an inferior being — a clever and useful pet, maybe — yet he also seems to empathize with him, talking about “our suffering” as if they’re equal partners, sacrificing themselves for the same lofty goal. He claims to regret torturing Celebrimbor “like Morgoth treated me,” name-checking the demonic tyrant who shaped Sauron’s earlier life.

Charles Edwards, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power

Ross Ferguson/Prime Video
Anchored by two of the show’s strongest actors, this conversation is the key to understanding Sauron. Tolkien lore-heads already know his godlike origin story, but for everyone else — especially those who only know Sauron as a disembodied eye in Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings movies — he was basically a cipher during Season 1. We only begin to see his true power after he adopts the Annatar persona. That’s also where Charlie Vickers’ versatility really makes itself known, making a drastic transformation this season.

When disguised as the human Halbrand, Sauron was grounded and casual, speaking with a Northern English accent and styled with a vague nod toward Viggo Mortensen’s Aragorn. He looked relatively close to Charlie Vickers’ natural unshaven appearance: handsome but not jarringly so, like a guy you might see in a car commercial.

Annatar is radically different. Similar to the way he tailored Halbrand toward Galadriel’s interests, Sauron creates a persona that appeals to Celebrimbor: a soft-spoken managerial go-between who supports Celebrimbor’s creative ambitions. Distinctly elvish in appearance, Annatar’s first costume positions him as Celebrimbor’s peer, wearing a graceful, sweeping robe with no hints of armor or weaponry. His smooth blond hair and clean-shaven face transform Vickers from man to elf, and his accent shifts toward the English aristocracy.

Above all, his body language is wonderfully insidious, with a looming quality that other characters find subconsciously intimidating, but dismiss as they succumb to his manipulations. It’s worth noting that Celebrimbor and, briefly, Durin (Owain Arthur) push back against Annatar in earlier episodes, growing suspicious of his single-minded desire to forge more rings. But as Elrond (Robert Aramayo) points out elsewhere, Sauron is perfectly capable of defusing a little suspicion. His tricks keep working even after you know what he’s doing, and Celebrimbor is an easy mark. Not only is he a rather sheltered and professorial type, but Sauron puts a lot of energy into altering his perception of reality, resulting in some heartbreaking moments when Sauron mind-controls Celebrimbor into disbelieving the evidence of his own eyes.

Sauron’s multifaceted villainy is a positive sign for future seasons, in a show that previously didn’t seem capable of serious psychological complexity. Elsewhere, pacing is still an issue. Featuring seven or eight concurrent storylines with dozens of supporting characters, these eight-episode seasons just don’t offer enough time for meaty emotional storytelling.

Rings of Power fans often argue that the show’s writers are playing a long game, and patient viewers will be rewarded as the story deepens. But to me, Sauron’s arc is the only place where that really holds true. It’s also pretty easy to explain why the Annatar/Celebrimbor storyline works so well. Rarely interrupted by action scenes or changes in location, the Eregion subplot revolves around a single relationship, centering on two excellent actors in an emotionally charged dynamic. That’s literally just a basic description of competent drama, but it’s something The Rings of Power‘s other subplots struggle to achieve.

Amazon marketed Galadriel and Sauron as the co-leads of Season 2, which says a lot about the show’s creative direction going forward. In order for this story to work, we need to understand who Sauron is. Halbrand laid the foundations for his identity as the Great Deceiver, and Eregion establishes the brute-force impact of his personal magnetism. Then Episode 7 spices things up by touching upon his backstory with the dark lord Morgoth: “Do you know what it is to be tortured by the hands of a god?”

In a recent interview, Charlie Vickers described Morgoth as a “nihilist,” contrasting with Sauron, who sees himself as a god who can “heal and fix Middle-earth.” Armed with this ironclad self-belief and a total absence of morals, there’s no limit to what he’ll do to achieve his goals.

We see the flip side of this in the almost sentimental way he talks about tormenting Celebrimbor, saying that he “enjoyed their time together,” even as he orchestrates Celebrimbor’s demise. He doesn’t perceive himself as a sadist in the way that Morgoth clearly was. It’s more like he sees these tactics as a necessary evil, sacrificing people like Celebrimbor in the name of “a perfect and lasting peace.”

Considering how many fantasy properties draw inspiration from Tolkien, featuring dark lord villains derived from Sauron, The Rings of Power‘s biggest challenge was making the original edition feel fresh and exciting. Season 2 proves that it can be done, focusing on small-scale psychological drama as Sauron’s influence begins to spread across Middle-earth.

New episodes of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power Season 2 stream Thursdays on Prime Video.