An obvious question about Amazon Studios’ mega-budget “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” series is when will Sauron show up?
The character has only appeared briefly in a flashback montage in the show’s first episode so far, otherwise he’s been absent from the screen even as his name and the threat of his presence looms large over the action.
Speaking with THR, showrunners Patrick McKay and J.D. Payne revealed that they wanted everyone to understand the struggles of Middle-earth before introducing Sauron who will forge the rings of power. McKay says:
“It would be very tempting to make the first season of this show The Sauron Show, very villain-centric. But we wanted that level of evil and complexity of evil to emerge out of a world that you’re invested in – not because evil is threatening it immediately. We wanted you to fall in love again with Middle-earth. We wanted you to understand and relate to the struggles that each of these characters are having before we test them in a way they’ve never been tested before.”
Payne says they haven’t been paying attention to the speculation on just who Sauron might be, be it an existing character we’ve seen or one not on the screen yet. Turns out they were hoping to see that discourse happen:
“It’s another Tolkien thing where when a shadow spreads – which is part of what is happening in our show – it affects everyone’s relationships. Even Frodo and Sam. They’re the best friends in all of Middle-earth, yet they started to mistrust each other because that’s a manifestation of that shadow. So having an audience suspect this person or that person could be Sauron is drawing them into that thing where the shadow is overcoming all of us and making us suspicious of each other.”
The talk comes ahead of the first season’s penultimate episode that airs this Friday, and in the wake of the sixth episode which had some revelations about Sauron and set a key event in motion regarding the forging of the rings.
