The Rings of Power‘s first two episodes made one thing very clear: Galadriel is right. A long dormant evil is rising in Middle-earth. Orcs are kidnapping entire villages. Strange beasts are wandering the countryside and destroying ships. And the land itself has spoiled. But the forces of good might soon find help in a new ally. Well, new to them at least. Because “The Stranger” who arrived in a comet might be an old supernatural being. He might also be the first incarnation of a great hero The Lord of the Rings fans know and love. And you don’t have to be a wizard to see why. Especially not if you can see grey.
Who Sent the Comet That Carried the Stranger?
No man, elf, dwarf, or orc could have survived a comet crash. Of course, no mortal race in the world can travel via small meteorite. It would take an entity far more powerful than any who walk Middle-earth to send someone careening through the sky. There’s only one logic explanation for who sent that celestial traveler: the Valar.
The Valar are supernatural entities who watch over Middle-earth. They are the most powerful beings in the universe besides the supreme Ilúvatar. For centuriesthe Valar did not interfere in the great battle of Middle-earth’s First Age. They looked on from afar as the “children” of Ilúvatar suffered at the hands of the original Dark Lord, Morgoth. (Himself one of the Valar.)
The Valar eventually relented and came to Middle-earth to defeated Morgoth for good. That victory ended the First Age. But the Valar then returned to their own western continent of Aman. That’s where Valinor sits, the realm to which Galadriel refused to return at the end of episode one.
While The Rings of Power takes place during the Second Age, we know the Valar got involved in the great war of Middle-earth’s Third Age. Rather than come again themselves, however, they sent five Maiar.
The Maiar are old powerful spirit servants who helped the Valar shape the world. But the Valar sent them to Middle-earth inside the bodies of old men. Called the Istari, The Lord of the Rings fans know those five robed, bearded, wise figures as wizards.
Is The Rings of Powers‘ Stranger a Wizard?
By the start of the Third Age, the Valar had separated Aman from the physical world. So wizards came to Middle-earth from the sky. (Repeat: from the sky.) The Valar sent them to assure the world the Valar had not forsaken Middle-earth nor its people in their renewed fight against the returning Sauron. One wizard above all aided Middle-earth in defeating Sauron for good before returning to reclaim his place in Aman.
The confused old man Nori miraculously found in a field of fire where the comet crashed—millennia before wizards arrived during an entirely different age—possesses many of the same powers wizards had.
What are the Stranger’s Powers on The Rings of Power?
The paranoid, strange, easy to anger Stranger arrived nearly naked and acting erratically. He survived his crash but doesn’t remember how to fully communicate. Yet he’s still incredibly powerful. He’s unquestionably far more skilled than any race of Middle-earth. He can move things with his mind. And his scream, which turned the world dark, doesn’t just shake everything around him. That terrifying, inhuman roar seems capable of destruction.
He’s also impervious to fire. The flames from his comet didn’t harm him. No surprise then he can pull flames into himself and snuff them out without injury. He also took Nori and Poppy’s fireflies and controlled them to form stars in the sky. Unfortunately that also killed all the fireflies, which is one ability that should frighten everyone on Middle-earth. The Stranger can suck the life from livings things, though he did not take joy in killing the fireflies. Either that was unintended or a sacrifice required to use his magic. But because he’s not fully in control of himself or his abilities, he is paranoid and scared.
So is the Stranger a wizard? He has more in common with the Istari than any creature ever born on Middle-earth. And Poppy realized he’s no man or elf, but “something else.”
What Is the Stranger Trying to Tell Nori?
Like Nori, we don’t yet know what the Stranger is trying to communicate. What did those drawings on the rock mean? (They looked like runes.) What about the lines in the dirt? Are they a map? Also, what word was he repeating and why? And what was the significance of the constellation he highlighted with fireflies? We don’t know yet, either. But if nothing else, the Stranger clearly finds meaning in the sky where he came from.
But we can do something Nori can’t – we can also find meaning in both his size and appearance. Nori’s “giant” friend wears a tattered grey robe, has a long grey beard, and long grey hair. This powerful being sent by the Valar—who came from the sky, is impervious to fire, and has powers of a wizard—really loves the color grey.
And there’s only one figure in all of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth that fits that description – Gandalf the Grey.
Is The Rings of Powers‘ the Stranger Actually Gandalf?
Tolkien’s unofficial notes for his fantasy world say that the two Blue Wizards (of the five) sent during the Third Age (Alatar and Pallando) had previously come to Middle-earth during the Second Age. So it’s possible wizards first came to Middle-earth long before anyone realized. Tolkien’s Unfinished Tales also says wizards “had need to learn much anew by slow experience” when they came to Middle-earth. The Maiar’s transformation into a physical body and trip seem to leave them confused initially.
We also know Gandalf—whose name among the Maiar is Olórin—occasionally walked among the Elves in disguise. So if he ever came to Middle-earth previously they might not have even known the shapeshifter’s real identity and purpose.
Gandalf, like the Stranger, also had a special relationship with fire. It could not injure him and he could create it from nothing to light torches with magic. Ultimately he also bore Narya, the Elvish ring of fire. Gandalf, who wrote on Bilbo’s door in runes, also talked to bugs. And when the One Ring tempted him, the world turned dark as he screamed at Bilbo and Frodo. Just as the Stranger did when Nori frightened him.
The otherworldly voices the Stranger heard also sounded a lot like the voice of Sauron Frodo heard when he put on the One Ring. And like Gandalf, Sauron is one of the Maiar.
But the connections between the two go even further. Gandalf the Grey died in The Fellowship of the Ring. His Maiar spirit did not depart Middle-earth for long. Ilúvatar sent a naked Olórin back to fight Sauron. Despite now being another entity entirely (but with the same spirit), the wizard let his former companions call him Gandalf again, only this time he was Gandalf the White. However, at first he did not even remember the name Gandalf. It took a few days for Olórin to piece everything together in his mind.
And what did he do when he first returned naked to the world? “There I lay staring upward” from a mountaintop he said, “While the stars wheeled over, and each day was as long as a life-age of the earth.” Like the Stranger, Gandalf looked to the stars for guidance. That might be because both had the same mission on Middle-earth.
The Stars of the Valar and Middle-earth’s Smallest Heroes
Varda, Queen of the Valar, created new, brighter stars before the elves awoke on Middle-earth. They were the first things the elves saw and they loved them. But Varda created some to be more than beautiful lights. She arranged those ones into constellations meant to serve as warnings of future doom.
That’s why the Valar sent wizards to Earth during the Third Age, to help fight a coming doom. Now it appears the Valar did the same thing during the Second Age, too. Possibly with the same Maiar, Olórin. And if that’s the case, The Rings of Power might have just shown why Gandalf put the world’s fate in the hand’s of Middle-earth’s small-folk.
Nori found the Stranger and refuses to leave him. She’s also keeping him safe, in part, because she feels some unknown powerful entity sent this man to her. But also because Harfoots, the hobbits ancestors, are good, caring people.
The Valar sent he Stranger to Middle-earth. Like the stars he looks to above, his arrival is an omen of a coming doom. And if he really is Olórin, it will be easy to see why Gandalf trusted in the bravery, courage, and heart of hobbits – Nori’s show Olórin their worth on Middle-earth long before.
Mikey Walsh is a staff writer at Nerdist. You can follow him on Twitter at @burgermike. And also anywhere someone is ranking the Targaryen kings.
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