The Lord Of The Rings: The Rings Of Power Offers First Look At Celebrimbor – Here's Why He Matters

As befitting a production of this scope (and budget level), the upcoming "The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power" will include a bevy of new characters and subplots for viewers to wrap their minds around. Set thousands of years before the events of "The Lord of the Rings" and "The Hobbit" — though, importantly, taking place in a separate continuity from the Peter Jackson films — the Prime Video series may feel a bit overwhelming to take in all at once, even with five total seasons to tell this complete story. There will be proto Hobbits, characters falling from the sky, and the looming specter of a young, but no less formidable, Dark Lord Sauron hanging over it all.

The famous villain of J.R.R. Tolkien's novels may have been rather unhealthily obsessed with jewelry, forming his entire villainous plan around the forging of dozens of immensely powerful rings and controlling them all (and their wearers) through the One Ring itself, but he didn't do it alone. Tolkien nerds know that he initially recruited the unwitting race of Elves, the master craftspeople to whom Sauron taught the fine art of ring-making. Fans have long guessed that the main plot of the series would focus on this particularly dramatic storyline, and now we have the biggest piece of evidence in support of that theory.

Of the many new and familiar faces included in the series, such as the eventual Elven queen Galadriel (played by Cate Blanchett in the movies and by Morfydd Clark here), one name to remember will be Celebrimbor. Here's why.

In short, if you're looking for someone to cast blame on for the many evils that would befall Middle-earth in the ages to come ... well, it'd be unfair to put it all on Celebrimbor (rather than, you know, Sauron himself), but there's no denying the incredibly significant role he plays in the grand scheme of things.

Empire has released our first real look at the Elf Celebrimbor, played by Charles Edwards in "The Rings of Power." To his credit, he was no ignorant accomplice of Sauron — unlike much of his kin, Celebrimbor was immediately suspicious of Sauron's motivations, long before he was decked out in evil-looking armor or took the form of a giant flaming eye, back when he actually went by the much less sinister-sounding name of Annatar. But you don't need to hear me ramble on about it. Take it straight from showrunners J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay. As Payne puts it:

"We're dealing with one of the greatest villains that's ever been created in Sauron. And one of the central figures in the story is the character of Celebrimbor. He's an Elven smith who was manipulated into helping create the Rings Of Power. We're excited to be bringing him to Middle-earth. He's very mysterious."

Ultimately, Celebrimbor was responsible for forging the three Rings gifted to the Elves, as glimpsed in the prologue of Peter Jackson's "The Fellowship of the Ring." It's fair to assume that much of the first season of "The Rings of Power" will concern the trustworthiness of Sauron, the very beginnings of his scheme to rule the world through his Rings, and the many well-intentioned figures who will resist.

Keep an eye on /Film for more "The Rings of Power" goodness to come this week, ahead of the series' debut on Prime Video on September 2, 2022.