Will Gandalf Be in ‘The Rings of Power’? We May Have Already Met Him

Will Gandalf be in The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power? That’s the question many Lord of the Rings fans are asking after watching the first two episodes of Prime Video‘s The Rings of Power. We know that Galadriel (Morfydd Clark) is hellbent on hunting Sauron, but is it possible that the mysterious Stranger (Daniel Weyman) who has crash landed on Earth is a Second Age version of Gandalf? The Istari technically don’t arrive in Middle-earth until the Third Age, but maybe The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power are seizing upon lines about how Gandalf “walked unseen” amongst the elves while he was still a Maiar known as Olórin.

The first two episodes of Amazon’s The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power set up many mysteries for Tolkien fans to decipher. What does Sauron’s symbol mean? Have we met Sauron yet? Why does Elrond have short hair? But most of all…will Gandalf be in The Rings of Power?

Here’s everything we know from the showrunners and Tolkien’s lore so far…

WILL GANDALF BE IN THE RINGS OF POWER?

The truth is we don’t know for sure yet if Gandalf will appear in any form in Prime Video’s The Rings of Power. According to Tolkien, the Istari, aka wizards like Gandalf, Saruman, and Radagast, we’re dispatched to Middle-earth until the Third Age. That said, Gandalf existed well before arriving on Middle-earth. He was created by Ilúvatar, who is like Tolkien’s version of an all-powerful god, at the beginning of time to serve the Ainur, which are like Tolkien’s version of a pantheon of gods who specialize in certain things.

So what was Gandalf up to during the First and Second Ages? Besides serving the Ainur, it is said he “walked unseen” amongst the Elves inspiring them with visions that made their hearts happier. He also was known for taking pity on men suffering through despair. So some version of Gandalf existed in the Second Age and occasionally was plugged into what was happening on Middle-earth.

The most obvious contender for a potential Gandalf in Rings of Power would be the Stranger. Besides befriending a hobbit, having a scraggly beard, and magical powers, the Stranger whispers to the fireflies in a way that evokes Gandalf whispering to the moths to beckon the eagles for help in The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. But then, uh, the fireflies die.

In a longer conversation about the Stranger, co-showrunner Patrick McKay told Decider these nods connecting the Stranger to Gandalf were as intentional as the ones linking him to Sauron: “So if the Stranger, you know, whispers to a firefly in one moment and then the firefly dies in the next moment, those are both very conscious choices. And what they seem to suggest about who he is or where he’s coming from, or what choices he will make in the future…”

If the Stranger is an early, confused version of Gandalf, it could be that the purity of Nori Brandyfoot (Markella Kavenagh) and Poppy Proudfellow (Megan Richards) inspires him to hew closer to good, and to love hobbits in the Third Age. Then again, Gandalf could be held offscreen for the duration of The Rings of Power as he’s not technically supposed to be messing around with Middle-earth in this era. We’ll have to wait and see.