The Rings of Power on Prime Video: Where is Sauron? The showrunners’ response

After the first episode of Rings of Power, available on Amazon Prime Video, the question is on everyone’s mind: Where is Sauron?

The great villain of the series, adapted from the works of JRR Tolkien, the #1 enemy of the free peoples of Middle-earth, the Dark Lord seems to have disappeared completely after the defeat of his master Morgoth, and prepares his return in the greatest mystery.

But where exactly is it? Have we already seen him in the guise of one of the main characters for the first 7 episodes of the show? Is it a stranger who fell from the sky? Halbrand’s? Sad Adar? Which of these many fan theories worked out?

While the series waits to answer all these questions, two Rings of Power showrunners, Patrick McKay and JD Payne, recently spoke about Sauron’s apparent absence in these first few episodes.

“It would be very tempting to make this first season a ‘Sauron show’ and be too focused on the villain.”– said JD Payne at the microphone HollywoodReporter.

“But we wanted to (…) This evil appears in the world you are already embedded in, not that evil threatens this world from the beginning. We wanted you to fall in love with Middle-earth all over again, to understand the struggles of each of these characters before they were tested like never before.”

As for the many theories that have surfaced about Sauron’s identity, two showrunners welcomed them, explaining that sowing doubt is one of the villainous character’s main strategies:

“In Tolkien, generally, when the shadow spreads (…)This affects the relationship of all the characters. (…) So the fact that the audience suspects that this or that character is Sauron turns them into something where the shadow covers us all, making us suspicious of each other.

So we’ll have to wait a little longer to find out where the Dark Lord is actually hiding. But we may have an answer in Episode 8, the final chapter of Season 1, which will be released next week on Amazon Prime Video.

Until then, (re)discover the trailer for the series…