Rings of Power’s masked riders are playing with a messy Tolkien legacy

In its second season, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power is moving to locations and time periods that J.R.R. Tolkien illustrated so sparingly that the show is essentially free to invent whatever it wants. 

Which is to say, Rings of Power is going to Rhûn, the catch-all place name for all land east of the principal locations of Tolkien’s epic. And in the first three episodes of season 2, we’re already getting a look at the mysteries of Rhûn and the origins of last season’s strangest antagonists. 

[Ed. note: This piece contains spoilers for the first three episodes of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power season 2.]

Episode 2, “Where the Stars Are Strange,” formally begins to introduce Rhûn and its people — or at least the ones who live closest to the more known regions of Middle-earth. 

First up are some horse-riding “trackers,” whose fearsome metal masks and desert-ready dress are certainly reminiscent of the Easterling soldiers depicted in Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy. “Easterling” was Tolkien’s term for any humans living east of Mordor, so technically, regardless of how they dress, all humans in Rhûn are Easterlings. 

After he set up shop in Mordor in the Second Age, Sauron pushed his empire eastward when he couldn’t push westward, finding the conquering much easier in that direction, with no elven strongholds and fewer wizards to oppose him. Tolkien’s texts describe Easterlings as having lived under Sauron’s dominion for so long that they couldn’t help turning to evil even after his overthrow — among the more overt xenophobic and Orientalist aspects of the writer’s work. 

Rings of Power season 2 takes place before Sauron ever came to dominate their lands, but it seems these Easterlings have got another shifty magic guy in residence: the Dark Wizard, as he’s called in the credits, played by Ciarán Hinds. The leader of the Easterling group offers the Wizard a trade: He’ll capture the mysterious Istar (the Stranger) wandering Western Rhûn, and the Wizard will heal the “curse upon our flesh.” 

What is that curse? Unclear! It’s an idea that seems to be unique to Rings of Power. 

Who is the Dark Wizard? Also unclear. What we can tell is that he appears to be in charge of the mysterious white-robed figures who sought out the Stranger in season 1. He sure looks like a classic Tolkienian wizard, but he doesn’t talk about the Istari (an elven word for “wizards”) as if he’s one of them. Whether that’s because he isn’t one, or because he wants everyone to think he isn’t one remains to be seen. What else can we say about him? Well, his stronghold’s name is Caras Gaer. “Caras” is an ancient elven word likely meaning “fortress,” while “gaer” means “dread.” So we know he’s good at branding. 

Is this guy actually a wizard? If he is, is he one we know, like Saruman or either of the Blue Wizards? If he isn’t… what’s his deal then? And what does this mean for the future of these Easterling trackers and their curse? That’s for the rest of Rings of Power to show us, as it wrestles with Rhûn, an area of Tolkien’s canon that’s both wide open for interpretation and could really use some modern recontextualization.