In the first two episodes of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, there is truly no shortage of unanswered questions. But the most burning question is certainly that of the mysterious man (Daniel Weyman) who crashes into a meteorite in Middle-earth and there by the harfoot girls Nori (Markella Kavenagh) and Poppy (or Magsi in the German version) (Megan Richards). Is found. Is the stranger (as he is officially called) possibly Gandalf? Or Sauron? Or who else?
We know Sauron will sooner or later have to show his face in The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, but we don’t know who is playing the big villain. That’s why there are numerous candidates: Is it the mysterious Halbrand (Charlie Vickers)? Is it the mysterious blonde-haired character (Bridie Sisson) from the trailers? Or maybe the meteorite man?
After all the fire around the crash site isn’t hot, as Nori notes. This is reminiscent of the opening with the snow troll, where the torches of the elves also gave off no heat, because the power of evil was so strong there. Does that mean that evil is also at work in the meteorite crater? And don’t even the fireflies die after the stranger has used them to draw a constellation in the sky?
Besides, showrunner JD Payne already has reveal that Sauron may show up in a way people aren’t expecting. Perhaps he means “Sauron as a confused bearded man”? Overall, however, we’re less than convinced of this possibility because Sauron really only appears in two forms in the Second Age: as a powerful villain and as a seductive Annatar who leads the elves to forge the rings (which is then presumably the “unexpected form” that JD Payne is talking about).
A bearded man who travels with hobbits/harfeet, can communicate with insects and obviously has magical powers? No wonder many The Rings of Power fans automatically think of Gandalf (played by Ian McKellen in the films) when portraying the Stranger.
But even if the assumption is more than understandable: That the meteorite man is Gandalf is almost impossible. Because JRR Tolkien’s books state exactly when and how Gandalf arrived in Middle-earth (many thousands of years later and by ship). But there shouldn’t and mustn’t be such canon breaks in “The Rings of Power”.
There is also a widespread theory that the Meteorite Man could be another magician, of which there are five in Tolkien. Saruman (played by Christopher Lee in the films) and Radagast (Sylvester McCoy) drop out for the same reasons as Gandalf, but there are still the two blue wizards, Alatar and Pallando.
According to Tolkien’s later works, Alatar and Pallando arrived in Middle-earth as early as the Second Age, around the time the Rings of Power were being forged. So timing would make sense, but we still don’t really believe that theory because Alatar and Pallando are always portrayed as a duo. If only one of them appeared in The Rings of Power, it would be kind of incongruous.
But there is something that connects all of the characters mentioned in this article – and that could actually be the answer to the mystery of the stranger…
Then both Sauron and Gandalf and the other wizards (and the Balrogs too, by the way) are so-called Maiarpowerful divine spirits who answer to the Valar, the gods and goddesses of Tolkien’s world.
There are numerous Maiar, but only a few of them have names, so it wouldn’t be impossible that the series executives could have simply come up with a new Maia or repurposed one of the well-known Maiar for their purposes.
One possibility would be the Maia Tilion, for example. A poem by the Hobbits even says that “the man in the moon” fell to earth like a meteorite (!) – and this Hobbit saga of the man in the moon is said to have its origins in the character Tilion…
This would also fit the statement of Payne’s showrunner colleague Patrick McKay, opposite Vanity Fair to the question about the sorcerers replied: “I would say that [Gandalf, Radagast und Saruman] aren’t the only beings in this class.” That sounds like a different wizard to us – or maybe a Maia.
Of course, the mysterious words that the stranger says: “mana” and “úrë” should also be a key to the solution. Tolkien fans on the Internet are still puzzling over exactly what that means, but “úrë” almost certainly means heat. Possible translations are “What [ist] Heat”, “Where to [ist] heat” or “blessed heat”. So maybe the stranger doesn’t know heat (see also the cold fire in his crash site) or is looking for a certain (blessed) heat.
It is also interesting that the meteorite man apparently speaks the Elven language Quenyai.e. familiar with this language, although Nori speaks to him in a different language.
You can find out more about the various theories in the above video from minute 9:30. JD Payne and Patrick McKay will certainly not let themselves be looked at too quickly here, after all they have already announced that the secret of the stranger will only be revealed gradually. In “The Rings of Power“Episode 3, which will be released on September 9, 2022 on Amazon Prime Video, there could still be further clues.
