Warning! Spoilers for The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power Season 3 Episodes 1-4 follow.
If you’re caught up with The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, you’ll have watched Season 3, Episode 4 and were probably left reeling by a shock character death that leaves the elves in a spot of bother going into the final stretch.
During the first four episodes of Season 3, we see Theo, played by Tyroe Muhafidin, tempted by Sauron into becoming a Nazgnagôl. Nazgnagôl are men who wear one of Sauron’s Rings of Power, but still retain something of their humanity. That is, they are not fully Nazgûl, or Ringwraiths, as we know of the beings in the Third Age of J. R. R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth. They are, at this stage, Ring Servants.
Theo, last seen as a hopeful child of the Southlands and friend of hero elf Arondir, is now older and full of hate after five years of Númenórean oppression. Sauron sees something in him, something special, and offers Theo a gift. In Episode 2, appropriately called The Gift of Men, Sauron performs a dark ritual that lets Theo “meet” his mysterious father, or at least that’s what we think is happening here (with Sauron, you never really know!).
This is a callback to a scene in Season 1 where a young Theo encounters The Hilt, a broken sword-hilt forged during the First Age. It had been left hidden in a barn where Theo discovers it, and we see Theo’s blood drip into the Hilt, somehow feeding its regeneration. Clearly, Theo had some dark power inside him, although it was left unaddressed, sparking many fan theories over recent years.
In Season 3, Sauron notices the dark mark left on Theo’s arm after his interaction with The Hilt and immediately raises an eyebrow. Who was Theo’s father, really? During the ritual, Sauron uses the power of necromancy to communicate with the dead in the Unseen World. Sauron listens to the words of the dead, and tells Theo his father was named Fäldred, Son of Hammethreg. Theo asks, “Who are you, father?” The response, in Black Speech, is “Gorthmundur.” Sauron tells Theo this was a “Noble House of old, the sworn stewards of Mordor blessed with… certain powers.”
These powers, it seems, were passed down to Theo. “There is a reason you were drawn to that hilt, and it to you,” Sauron continues, before suggesting that Theo might have become ruler of the Southlands had his mother not “hidden the truth.” Theo responds to say his mother told him his father left. Sauron disputes this, before issuing a revelation that sends Theo spiralling: his mother murdered his father over what he had become.
Sauron, ever the opportunist, offers Theo a Ring of Power. He tells him that he has the power within him to become “a conqueror, a sorcerer, a king.” The downcast Theo accepts the gift.
Fast forward to Episode 4, and one of two shock deaths that punctuate this first block of The Rings of Power Season 3. Theo, now in full Nazgnagôl gear and spurred on by Sauron, murders his friend Arondir during the escape from Gundabad. It’s a shocking twist that cements Theo’s descent into darkness, and marks the end of the road for one of the mighty heroes of The Rings of Power.
In the interview below, I ask Tyroe Muhafidin about Theo’s journey in these first four episodes, what it’s like to play a Nazgnagôl, and where the murder of Arondir leaves The Rings of Power. And yes, we get into the question of Theo’s parentage. Was Sauron telling him the truth about his father?
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