They all had different takes, and I’m so here for them!

I never thought we’d see Sauron cry. However, when he shed a tear in Rings of Power’s Season 2 finale after the death of Celebrimbor, it hit me like an emotional brick wall. So, when I found out I’d be interviewing the showrunners, Charlie Vickers and Morfydd Clark, I knew I had to ask them all about Sauron shedding a tear.

For context, in the months since my initial Rings of Power interviews and Season 2 airing on the 2024 TV schedule, this was a tragic scene I couldn’t stop thinking about. After Sauron killed Celebrimbor, he let a tear fall over it, and why he did such a thing was something I loved but couldn’t quite fathom.

Thankfully, Patrick McKay, J.D. Payne, Charlie Vickers and Morfydd Clark all have fantastic interpretations of said instant, and their explanations paint a fascinating picture of Sauron’s psyche during that pivotal point.

(Image credit: Ben Rothstein / Prime Video)

Rings Of Power’s Showrunners Have Different Takes On Why Sauron Cried After Killing Celebrimbor

Rings of Power is one of Amazon Prime’s best shows because of emotional moments like this one. While it’s an epic and action-paced series, it’s full of surprising vulnerability and tear-jerking instances too. That was illustrated perfectly when Celebrimbor died, and Sauron got unexpectedly emotional. Now, the reason behind why makes the instance even better, because there’s not one that’s set in stone, as the showrunners proved with their differing takes.

First, let’s start with Patrick McKay’s take. He told me that he and his co-showrunner have different reasons why Sauron showed emotion, and then proceeded to tell me his opinion on the matter, explaining:

That’s one of our favorite moments of the whole season. It’s huge, and I think came spontaneously out of the performance from Charlie. Oh, actually, I actually think this was scripted a little bit. It was the the idea that he had some kind of moment was scripted. You know, I think Sauron is a complex character with complex motives. Whether he has any good in him and he’s capable of something like regret is, I think, a question. In my mind, in that moment, his narcissism has been punctured because he has been beaten. And he can’t face his own defeat. It’s like it breaks him on some level.

McKay ended his explanation by saying that’s just his take, and we can choose to believe what he thinks or what J.D. Payne thinks because their thoughts on the matter don’t match.

That was then confirmed as the other showrunner explained the moment by noting the importance of Sauron’s relationships with characters like Adar, Morgoth, Galadriel and Celebrimbor. To that point, he said that there’s a pattern of destruction here, noting that “everything [Saruon] touches eventually sort of turns to ashes.”

To that point, he said this partnership between Sauron and Celebrimbor could have meant a lot to Vickers’ character, and his death may have gotten to him. There was so much potential that was extinguished when Charles Edwards’ character died, and that was because of Sauron’s actions. Continuing his explanation about why Sauron cried, Payne told me:

But ultimately, Sauron, he’s a poisonous snake. And poisonous snakes, in some ways, don’t get to have friends, because their venom is ultimately going to kill anyone they get close to. And the fact that [Sauron] couldn’t actually genuinely have a true relationship with someone that was a mutually edifying, beautiful thing, it was ultimately parasitic, and [he] destroyed the great artist who made the thing that [he’s] been waiting for 1000s of years. There’s a certain amount of self-loathing and regret and sadness that goes into that.

Overall, Payne’s view seems to lie more in the idea that Sauron actually is mourning the loss of someone he cared about. While care is a strong word, it was a partnership he valued at the very least, and therefore, it made him emotional when he killed Celebrimbor.

Now, while these two have differing views – one being rooted in Saruon’s narcissism and the other having to do with genuine sadness – Charlie Vickers and Morfydd Clark’s thoughts on the matter kind of bring these two ideas together.

(Image credit: Prime Video)

Charlie Vickers Told Me How He Justified His Choice To Have Sauron Cry In This Moment, And Morfydd Clark Agreed

While Payne and McKay spoke at length about what they thought the meaning was behind this scene, Charlie Vickers was the ultimate source on the matter, because the tears came from his eyes. So, I was surprised to hear him say the following when I asked him why it happened:

The honest answer is that I don’t know.

He continued on to tell me that in the moment it just happened, and he had to justify the why behind it later. However, he came up with said justification, and it’s a good one.

First, Vickers told me that part of the reason his character shed a tear stemmed from him losing a valuable partnership. While he wasn’t exactly friends with Celebrimbor, they were working hard to accomplish a goal together, so he felt that loss:

He’s losing someone that meant a lot to him, in the sense of, if not in an emotional like ‘you’re my friend,’ kind of way, in a creative way. [We] can’t forget that he has been trying to find this breakthrough, this power, not of the flesh, but over flesh, for hundreds of years, and he’s finally met someone that can unlock it. They had this wonderful partnership.

From the moment Annatar emerged from the flames, the pair did work well together. Plus, they got close to achieving the goal of forging the rings.

However, as we saw, Charles Edwards’ elf ended up seeing through the charade, and he called Sauron on it. That also made the evil being feel incredibly angry and frustrated, as Vicerks continued to explain:

But I think what’s more powerful than that is that Celebrimbor says ‘You are a prisoner of the rings,’ or whatever the line is. And that brings Sauron to this point of rage that he kills Celebrimbor before he can ask him where the nine rings are. And I think there’s this huge amount of frustration and anger that he’s lost control. And it’s the losing of control that is so annoying, because he doesn’t lose control. He’s Sauron. Control is his whole deal.

To that point, Morfydd Clark chimed in too, agreeing with her co-star. Her character Galadriel and Celebrimbor have both been on the receiving end of Sauron’s gaslighting, so she’s very familiar with what her fellow elf is going through. She’s also familiar with how the villain thinks, which is why she said the following about him shedding a tear for the elven smith:

I loved it, because I think it showed that he’d underestimated Celebrimbor in every possible way. And that was the final showing of like, ‘Oh, it’s affected me.’

While these two actors and the showrunners have different takes on the greater meaning behind Sauron’s actions, ultimately it creates a whole mosaic that centers around self-loathing and regret that explains why he did what he did on a deep level.

So, now, while we wait for Rings of Power Season 3, you can go back and re-watch Season 2 with an Amazon Prime subscription, and think about all these fascinating explanations about why Saruon – the seemingly unshakeable evil being – cried after killing Celebrimbor.