Here's A First Look At Theo And Bronwyn In The Lord Of The Rings: The Rings Of Power

You know, I was just starting to think that after a couple of months away from the deluge of new posters released for Amazon's "The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power" series that focused almost exclusively on zoomed-in hands, what we really needed these days was yet more out-of-context images of characters (likely new ones we've never even heard of, or obscure ones that most of us have never even heard of) milling around the fantasy world of Middle-earth. In all fairness, we quickly received a bounty of new information leading up to the Super Bowl trailer, which showed off even more of what this new challenger to the "Game of Thrones" title has to offer. It's been mostly radio silence since then, until today.

The official Twitter account for the "Rings of Power" series abruptly dropped a couple of new images from the upcoming new series, which is set thousands of years before the events of "The Lord of the Rings" and "The Hobbit" trilogies and, importantly, doesn't exist in the same continuity. Limited by the complicated copyright situation with the ever-protective Tolkien Estate and the paltry material available for the creative team to use as inspiration — essentially, only the appendices chapters included at the end of J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Return of the King," as opposed to any of the actual books themselves that Peter Jackson, Philippa Boyens, and Fran Walsh adapted from — this new Amazon series will instead have to rely on brand-new additions to lore that fit in between the margins of Tolkien's established, fictional history.

That brings us to our introduction to 2 new characters, both of whom appear to be wholly original creations for this series. Meet Theo and Bronwyn, the former of whom immediately set off a mini firestorm among certain fans for apparently not sounding "Tolkienish" enough. (This is where I point out that "Theo" is a very common prefix in Middle-earth, particularly among the Rohirrim! King Théoden, his son Théodred, and even Theobald Bolger of the Hobbits would surely protest!) But for the more reasonable members of the fanbase, there's at least a few interesting nuggets to glean from these new characters. Feast your eyes on them below!

Up first we have Bronwyn, portrayed by Persian actor Nazanin Boniadi who is most well-known for playing Nora in "How I Met Your Mother," in addition to appearances on "Homeland," "Hotel Mumbai," and most recently in "Bombshell." The description provided by Amazon doesn't really shed much light on what this character's deal is, only explaining that:

Wearing a long red hooded cape, Bronwyn stands near a small pool of water that sits within a rocky mountain.

Of course, the most famous mountain range in Tolkien's world would be the Misty Mountains, the range that neatly bisects Middle-earth and is home to the Mines of Moria — the abandoned Dwarven kingdom where Gandalf the Grey (Ian McKellen) would eventually fall to his death thousands of years later and a location that we'll actually be revisiting during this new series. But it remains to be seen whether Bronwyn, who appears to be human (unless her hair is hiding some pointy Elf or Hobbit ears, is actually journeying through this specific range of mountains or one of the many others littered throughout the land.

Amazon

The next image gives us slightly more to go on. Theo is described as he "gazes at a broken sword he holds in his hands. The sword is old and jagged and the hilt is ornate." The most legendary example of a broken sword wielded by a Tolkien character would have to be Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen), who inherited the Shards of Narsil from his ancestor Isildur (who'll appear in the Amazon series, played by Maxim Baldry), who shattered the blade when defeating the Dark Lord Sauron in combat, depicted in the prologue of "The Fellowship of the Ring." The timeline doesn't quite match up for this character and his sword to have anything to do with Aragorn, to be clear, but that precedent sure indicates how important this artifact and possibly this character will turn out to be.

Theo is portrayed by Australian actor Tyroe Muhafidin in by far his biggest role yet. To get back to that little naming controversy from earlier, "Theo" traces its Old English roots (a language Tolkien was heavily inspired by) to the word "king," perhaps pointing to a royal lineage for this young character or, perhaps, something darker.

We'll find out for sure once "The Rings of Power" premieres on Prime Video on September 2, 2022.