Of Sauron & Galadriel | The Rings of Power | Exploring Sauron's Characterization as "Halbrand"

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"Why Halbrand?" on Reddit: / why_halbrand

[@Kynokefalos]

Nice guy Sauron: he will give to his future wife a wedding gift in the form a Banner :P. Sure she will love it, he thinks.

[@evildoesnotsleep-x2b]

Adding to Sauron's character this complicated want for repentance is a brilliant addition to the lore. It's hard to care about evil villians, but one who's lingering between domination and redemption is fascinating. And the driving force was Galadriel, one of his greatest enemies. Initially it was her quest for revenge, but around the battle of the southlands, it was her empathy and her belief in them both that pushed him to be who he always was inside, a tyrant. It's not unlike a greek tragedy, her hope guided him to the dark.

[@teawithtolkien]

Yes!!! You see the vision

[@kosarnikcheh172]

Just perfectly well said 👍

[@TarMody]

The character of the repentant Sauron could have been worked into the process leading up to the making of the rings of power. The first season could have touched on his motivation for staying in Middle-earth and his relationship with the elves. As of the second season, the Annatar story could be introduced and rings of power could be brought to the agenda. This kind of narrative, as in the source material, could have more solidly constructed the process leading to the fall of the Sauron character.

[@shara1979]

But then they'd have to find things for the other characters to do during all this for one characters story

[@BoboftheOldeWays]

Excellent insights! I think the showrunners took this risk largely out of necessity. There are some ways in which season 1 feels to me like an extended pitch session. The Estate was holding back on elements like Annatar, probably because they wanted to see how well the show could handle the themes they felt were important before granting wider access to Second Age elements from the Legendarium. Apparently, it worked. Because we’re definitely getting Annatar, and possibly the Blue Wizards. I hope season 2 knocks it out of the park, and we can get more Second Age stuff as a result. The show has earned my trust. Now, I want it to win.

[@teawithtolkien]

I hope so too!!

[@mliem]

I tend to interpret Halbrand the same way, as penitent. However, even if he sincerely wanted Eru's forgiveness, he still had that badge pouch with him, which enabled him to pretend that he had a true claim to the throne of the Southlands. After meeting Galadriel, he initially seemed to resist her attempts to enlist him to her cause in the Southlands. And yet, all the while, he allowed her to believe he was the Southlands king (he wasn't wearing the badge around his neck when she first swam up. It was on his hip. He put it on later when they were alone on the raft, but when she finally notices him wearing it, he pretends that she wasn't supposed to see it. You've probably noticed that, but a lot of viewers didn't pick up on it.) That tells me he was keeping both paths open, the path of leaving the badge and going incognito as a humble smith in Numenor, at least for the time being, or going with Galadriel and claiming that throne. Toward the end of Episode 5 "Partings", there is a moment where Halbrand sits in the smithy alone, gazing at the badge and pouch in his hand. With no one around to deceive, he seems to be genuinely making a hard decision. Then someone comes to summon him to Queen Regent Miriel. He goes, but first he leaves the badge pouch on the work table. The camera closes in on it and holds it in close up for a few moments. Before long, someone comes, and a hand comes and takes it. Cut to: exterior daytime shot of Halbrand in armor, astride a horse, ready to be part of the voyage to Middle-earth. So I figure, the exact moment he decided to follow Galadriel and to continue deceiving his way onto the Southlands throne was when he came back for the badge pouch and took it off the table. However, he probably would have been rationalizing his choice by telling himself, as he would tell Galadriel in E8, that he would use that power to heal Middle-earth of the hurts he had helped cause. Here's a question, do you think Halbrand freed Adar from his manacles in Waldreg's barn during the chaos and mayhem of the eruption, and did he conspire with Adar to wound him with a lance and making it fester, giving Galadriel a reason to bring him to Eregion for Elvish medicine? I'm referring to the blink-and-you'll-miss-it shot of the manacles in the barn, unbroken, just before the area gets overwhelmed by the rush of fire and ash.

[@anni.68]

Thank you. That was great. I especially loved that part about Uinen.

[@teawithtolkien]

Thank you so so much for watching!

[@loribenton5975]

This is the best interpretation of Sauron's role in S1 I've yet heard. It resonates with me, anyway.

[@teawithtolkien]

Aww thank you!! I wish I could talk to the showrunners about it to see if I’m right, maybe someday!

[@marleneschultz3065]

He had redemption and grace and beauty so closely within his reach! And yet, he turned away from that goodness into despair and control. There's so many hidden depths. I lovedddd your reflection on Uinen! I was fascinated with that statue when I first saw it, and this really shows the symbolism at play.

[@teawithtolkien]

Thank you 🖤🖤🖤🖤🥰🥰🥰

[@mattmcmullen8244]

Well done. Most people focused on how weird it was for Galadriel and Sauron to be buddies, or how wrong it was for Galadriel to be deceived; but the point was more that Nothing is evil in the beginning. I was personally more bothered by the idea that Galadriel, rather than Celebrimbor, was the primary victim of Sauron’s deceptions, but it looks like we’re getting the real Sauron-Celebrimbor action in S2, which allows their brief interaction in S1 to be a prologue rather than the totality of the two of them.

[@teawithtolkien]

I was worried they were going to sideline Celebrimbor and it bothered me very deeply but now I’m really happy to see they won’t be the case!

[@mateussoares3569]

@@teawithtolkien they did sideline celembrimbor, wtf

[@teawithtolkien]

@@mateussoares3569 all signs point to celebrimbor being a major focus in season two, which is good.

[@agentspaniel4428]

Another thing I'd like to add is if Sauron didn't have a genuine change of heart (even though said change would've been brief) he could've taken the form of a commoner to learn more about the people he plans to conquer although based on future events he ends up learning very little

[@mrs.manrique7411]

Halbrand mirrors Galadriel the whole time, asking her questions before responding with his own answers. The first time he speaks first is in episode 6, after the bloodlust of battle. BloodLUST. Ugh, he is a vampire as well as a false messiah. His charming narcissism was well portrayed! I still wish we saw Galadriel wanting to rule her own kingdom more, in order to rid the world of evil, so that the parallels Tolkien created could be more obvious/complete to general audiences.

[@movoo6077]

IF all you say were the story they wanted to tell, they certainly did a bang up job. all that crap fell flat with me; nothing felt believable.. sorry.

[@David.Bowman.]

I had a thought: In Aldarion and Erendis, he is always being drawn to the sea. It’s presented as an almost adulterous love-triangle between Aldarion, Erendis and the sea. There are numerous references to Uinen as the Maia responsible for those waters. Uinen ‘is’ the Sea. She is also a female Maia, a woman of sorts. ‘The Sea is always right’ maybe means ‘The woman is always right’ Hehehe

[@teawithtolkien]

Hehehe can’t argue with that

[@mrs.manrique7411]

In other languages, “the sea” seems to be translated as masculine. So Uinen is locked up while the seafarers are calling the sea male. Obviously there’s Ulmo and Osse (the storm Halbrand and Galadriel go through is SO interesting with that in mind…) but considering the Numenoreans mostly revered Uinen, this masculine translation and her imprisonment is disturbing. It’s ironic everyone’s reaction to that scene was, “That line is SO DUMB.” Like, yeah…it is. On purpose.

[@juergi1989]

You are so right 💪🏼👍🏼🔥

[@teawithtolkien]

Thanks for watching!

[@shara1979]

I just keep wondering why they put the Annatar Wig so high up on his forehead. Maybe he looked too good with a natural hairline, so they wanted to give him a huge forehead?? Everytime i see that picture, it bothers me, lol

[@teawithtolkien]

I think that might be Vickers’ natural hairline, but I also think they made the hairline kind of pointed to potentially look like devil horns or just to give it kind of an uncanny valley look

[@xenomorph6599]

There's no sign of tolkien in amazon's "game of thrones". Strange content for a tolkien channel.

[@teawithtolkien]

Sorry to hear you feel that way! Hope you find whatever content you’re looking for elsewhere.

[@grisha9609]

This is why I think making Sauron’s identity a mystery in season 1 was such a big mistake. I think repentant Sauron in mortal guise is a pretty interesting concept, but viewers can’t engage with that concept if we don’t know that that’s what we’re seeing on screen. If the audience had been let in on the secret much earlier in the season, that would have allowed us to actually engage with the journey that this video describes. We could even have been brought to feel similarly about Sauron slipping back into evil as we do about Sméagol in LotR. But because the secret is kept from the audience right up until the finale, that’s all lost, and the Halbrand reveal ends up just coming across as a cheap and rather confusing twist imo.

[@Monica-gr9rg]

I think introducing the audience to a character who's somewhat sympathetic even if we don't know their goals yet was actually really smart on Amazon's part. It's hard for an audience to care about a guy who just shows up being evil and doing evil things. There has to be something more to connect you to him. Darth Vader showed up as evil, but as the trilogy progressed and you learned more about him, he became the sympathetic villain. The same goes for Sauron but in reverse. Once you show him as "wholly evil," as described by Tolkien, you can't go back and try to elicit sympathy from the audience or make them care about what happens to him. So showing the audience what was lost in pursuit of pure power engages the audience in his journey.