Sauron is a big deal in J.R.R. Tolkien’s world. He’s the big baddie during the War of the Ring. He’s the Necromancer looming on the edge of “The Hobbit.” Heck, “The Lord of the Rings” is literally named after him. While that story is in the Third Age of Middle-earth history, the Dark Lord also plays a major role throughout the Second Age that precedes it. This is the period of time when Prime Video’s “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” is set.

While he may be important to that show, though, it takes two entire seasons before he is clearly established as Sauron, the Lord of the Rings and the Dark Lord of Middle-earth. In the interim, he takes on multiple forms. In Season 2, he spends most of his time masquerading around Middle-earth as “Annatar, Lord of Gifts.” However, he starts that season and spends all of Season 1 in the guise of Halbrand, a deposed Human king of the Southlands.

The Halbrand persona is confusing, if only because it isn’t in the books. Fairweather viewers and diehard fans alike were initially uncertain about Halbrand (played by Charlie Vickers) and struggled to figure out how he fit into the larger story. Let’s break down who this mortal individual is (or at least who Sauron said he is), what fans thought of the Halbrand schtick throughout Season 1, and how the persona connects to the immortal spiritual being that we all know so well.

Who is Halbrand in The Rings of Power?

Let’s start with an important clarification — Halbrand is an original character made up for “The Rings of Power.” The Dark Lord never takes this form in the books (although Sauron takes on many other forms). So, all we have to go on for Halbrand is what we see in J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay’s adaptation. Fortunately, we see quite a bit. When we first meet Halbrand in Season 1, he’s an outcast and exiled king of the Southlands floating on a shipwrecked raft out in the ocean. While we don’t immediately get an explanation of how he ended up adrift at sea (more on that in a minute), it’s in this condition that he crosses paths with Galadriel (Morfydd Clark).

The two unlikely companions visit Númenor before returning to Halbrand’s homeland, where they fight with an army of Uruks under the command of Adar (Joseph Mawle) who have invaded the region looking for a new homeland. During the conflict, Halbrand is wounded and Galadriel takes him to Eregion, where he is nursed back to health. In the process, we discover that he is also a master craftsman and metalsmith. He uses his knowledge to help the Elven smith Celebrimbor (Charles Edwards) forge Elven Rings — that is, until Galadriel discovers who he really is.

Why Rings of Power Fans thought Halbrand was Sauron in Lord of the Rings

In the Season 1 finale of “The Rings of Power,” Galadriel discovers that the ancient line of kings of the Southlands died out a millennia in the past. This forces Halbrand’s hand, and he reveals that he is, in fact, Sauron in disguise. While this is a shocker to the flabbergasted Galadriel, it was hardly a surprise to fans of the show. In fact, there were plenty of signs in the lead-up to the reveal.

Some of these were more subtle. Halbrand, for instance, is in a fair form, which he uses to manipulate people to do things for him — a very Sauron-esque approach to doing business. Earlier in Season 1, Gil-galad (Benjamin Walker) also points out that Galadriel would bring the very evil she sought to fight into being — something that was directly fulfilled by her championing Halbrand as the King of the Southlands. Halbrand also repeatedly indicates that his past was peppered with bad decisions and even said that his kingly sigil came from a dead man. He even asks Adar if he knows who he is, something that hearkens to the violent relationship that Sauron and Adar have in the show.

The biggest giveaway of all, though, was the lack of another obvious candidate. Halbrand was really the only good option for Sauron on the show. The Stranger (who is now confirmed to be Gandalf) was one option, but he was too innocent, confused, and out of touch to be Sauron. Adar was too different from Sauron’s personality to be a real option. There just weren’t a lot of alternatives to Halbrand, which made him the easy guess and the right answer once the Sauron mystery box was finally resolved.

Is Halbrand actually The Lord of the Rings Villain Sauron?

So, is Halbrand the same as Sauron? Or is it two different identities that lead from one to the other? For an answer, we look to the fact that Sauron is a shapeshifting devil of a Dark Lord. He takes on several distinct forms over his Middle-earth career, which lasts for thousands of years. In that time, he shapeshifts from terrifying figures to fair forms, like his Annatar look in Season 2 of “The Rings of Power.”

To be fair, some of these forms limit the Dark Lord. For instance, he loses his body twice during the Second Age in the books, and when he takes on a new form in the Third Age, it takes him hundreds of years. Part of that time is spent as the Necromancer, a shadowy form that J.R.R. Tolkien indirectly implies is distinctly weaker and not at full power yet.

Nevertheless, when we’re talking about Halbrand, we’re looking at a form of the Dark Lord that is at full power. This is confirmed through the backstory montage of the character’s creation at the beginning of Season 2. In that sequence, we see Sauron in another form as he’s betrayed by Adar and killed by his own Orc followers. After a lengthy, unspecified period of time, he takes on a new form as Halbrand.

Once he’s reincarnated in his new physical form, though, he can shift that form from one appearance to another. So, while he may look different, as long as his body isn’t killed, the spiritual being that is Sauron can take on any appearance he likes and retain a relatively similar degree of internal power. To put it another way, even when he’s traipsing around Middle-earth as a mortal man, Halbrand and Sauron are one and the same — the Dark Lord and ring-maker that threatens all the Free Peoples of Middle-earth.