In addition to mystery box questions about the Stranger’s staff, the fate of the Dwarves, and the magic rings themselves, The Rings of Power Season 2 is strongly teasing that the identities of two mysterious wizards will be revealed very soon. Since Season 1, fans have put good money on Daniel Weyman’s The Stranger really being a younger Gandalf, and now, Season 2 has given us Ciarán Hinds as “The Dark Wizard,” who some fans are sure is Saruman, even if the timeline doesn’t quite match-up.
But what if the Dark Wizard and the Stranger aren’t Saruman and Gandalf at all? What if there’s a much deeper and bluer explanation?
The Stranger and The Dark Wizard
While the Stranger is on a quest to find his purpose, his staff, and his missing Harfoot friends, the Dark Wizard is on a mission to find the Stranger while getting more evil. But despite these differences, both characters are searching for their sense of self. This is somewhat literal with the Stranger, since his memory is missing, but a little more metaphorical with the Dark Wizard, since his very presence seems designed to provoke the audience as much as the characters. And if The Rings of Power Season 1 was focused on figuring out who Sauron really was, Season 2 is all about these two wizards figuring out themselves.
The Blue Wizard Theory
Reportedly, licensing restrictions limit The Rings of Power to only drawing from the actual book trilogy and its appendices. This means, in theory, that direct material from books like Unfinished Tales or The Silmarillion would be off-limits. But while only the people inside of The Rings of Power are aware of what they can and can’t reference, there seems to be some indication that Season 2 is sneakily drawing from these more obscure works.
Enter the Blue Wizards theory, which suggests that the Dark Wizard and the Stranger aren’t Saruman and Gandalf at all, but instead two very obscure wizards named Alatar and Pallando. While we learn little about them, in Unfinished Tales and The Silmarillion, they were tasked with keeping Saruon’s forces in the east and south in check while the other three wizards focused on the west. Geographically, this theory has some connection to The Rings of Power, since both the Dark Wizard and The Stranger are currently in Rhûn, which is in the east.
The angelic Valar sent five angels to Middle-earth to deal with Sauron. Alatar and Pallando were two of them, while Gandalf, Saruman, and Radagast make up the rest of the roster. But because The Lord of the Rings mentions five wizards, it’s reasonable to assume that The Rings of Power could walk a fine line of referencing the Blue Wizards without outright naming them. It’s a stretch, but at this point, The Rings of Power is adding so much to existing lore that turning the Stranger and the Dark Wizard into two Blue Wizards wouldn’t be that hard to pull off. And if these two aren’t who we think they are, then the real Gandalf and Saruman have yet to arrive. Despite everything else that’s happened so far, that would be the biggest twist of all.
