Rings of Power Will Finally Explain The Origins Of Iconic Lord of the Rings Villains
Who are the nine?
Since Season 1, The Rings of Power has been slowly revealing the origin story of the worst villain in all of Middle-earth, the Dark Lord Sauron, creator of the One Ring, and arguably the most famous baddie in all of fantasy fiction. Having said that, Rings of Power has one advantage over the original Lord of the Rings books from J.R.R. Tolkien, or even the beloved Peter Jackson films: at this point in time, in the Second Age of Middle-earth, Sauron still has a physical form and is a person we can see, rather than a presence or disembodied consciousness to fear. In the time of Frodo in The Lord of the Rings, Sauron’s most feared minions are nine men who have retained their rings of power, and as such have physical bodies — sort of. These are the wispy and horrible Ringwraiths, also known as the Nazgûl, nine Kings of Men who were forever transformed and made into eternal servants of Sauron and the Rings.
But who were these guys? In real-deal Tolkien canon, none of the exact names of the Nazgûl were ever revealed, and only “The Witch King,” the lead Ringwraith, was given a proper name. But now, with Rings of Power Season 3, the identity of one Ringwraith will be revealed. According to a new report from Empire, a new character, Khamûl the Easterling (Zubin Varla), will become a Nazgnagôl; a “ring servant,” a proto-version of a full Nazgûl.
How The Rings of Power Season 3 fills in a Tolkien gap
A Nazgûl in the 1978 animated film.
While some fans can quibble over the full canonicity of The Rings of Power, most broadly, the show has added backstory, rather than contradicted things outright. Yes, the timeline of the Second Age has been condensed significantly, but most of the additions arguably fill in vagueries, rather than being outright contradictory. Or, at least, that’s the defense that one might use to argue in favor of the show overall, and in this way, the new concept of the Ringwraiths feels like something the show should have already tackled. (Reminder: We didn’t even get actual Rings of Power until the end of Season 1.)
Although you might assume that Tolkien gave detailed backstories to each of the Kings of Men who took one of the Nine Rings forged for humankind, the truth is, he didn’t. All we know is that three of the kings were Númenóreans and one was an Easterling king. So it seems that with the introduction of Khamûl, Rings of Power is essentially saying this guy is one of the original Ringwraiths, which totally checks out with canon.
How Ringwraiths bridge the Middle-earth timeline gap
Sauron in The Rings of Power Season 3.
The Rings of Power give the wielders unusually long life, so all the humans who will be converted into Nazgûls are thousands of years old by the time of the War of the Ring in the Third Age. (I.E., the events of the classic books.) This means that The Rings of Power is giving us another major connection between this prequel era, which extends beyond long-lived characters like Gandalf, Galadriel, and Sauron.
Does this mean other characters we’ve already met become Ringwraiths? Certainly. In the video game Middle-earth: Shadow of War, relatively famous characters like Helm Hammerhand and Isildur became Ringwraiths. (The recent anime film focused on Helm toyed with this notion as well.) So, if Rings of Power transformed some of its other resident human characters into Ringwraiths, there would be a decent precedent.
And the best revelation about these proto-Nazgûl in Rings of Power Season 3 is that the Nazgûl are some of the coolest and scariest of all of Tolkien’s monsters. Having something familiar like this from Lord of the Rings lore is exciting. But it’s also equally exciting that Rings of Power is finally living up to its name by showing us the results of some of the most infamous rings of them all.
