RINGS OF POWER vs TOLKIEN Explained – Why Gandalf Is in the Second Age

For two seasons, people argued about who the Stranger really was. The thing is, the showrunners answered a different question. Why is he in the Second Age at all? And the answer they kept giving was a dinner menu. Elves, dwarves, halflings, and a wizard, because it's hard to picture Middle-earth without one. In other words, the wizard came before the story. So this video goes through what the book actually allows. In the appendices Amazon owns, the wizards show up about a thousand years into the Third Age. That's it. The one hint that Gandalf came earlier sits in a late note Tolkien never finished, and basically it's in a book the show doesn't have the rights to. What's funny is that the show built a lot on top of that anyway. For instance, "follow your nose", Bombadil, and the name Gandalf put together out of two halves. To be fair, some of it lands better than I expected. If you think about it, the test of power in the finale is very close to what Tolkien wrote about the wizards in his letters. Other parts break. You can see it on the map, I mean, the Stranger heads straight into the East. That's the one direction Gandalf says he never goes. Then season three, which starts on November 11. Gandalf walks into the war of the Elves and Sauron, right next to a Dark Wizard. And he may be one of the two wizards Tolkien himself moved into the Second Age. I don't know if that's where the show is going, but the clues line up. Written sources on screen: The Lord of the Rings: "The Shadow of the Past", "Strider", "A Journey in the Dark", "The Bridge of Khazad-dûm", "The Window on the West" and Appendix B (The Tale of Years); The Silmarillion (1977), "Valaquenta"; Unfinished Tales (1980), "The Istari"; The Peoples of Middle-earth (1996), "Last Writings"; The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien: letters 156 and 211; Vulture, Collider, Deadline, Screen Rant, The Hollywood Reporter, Los Angeles Times, GamesRadar+, Popverse, TheOneRing.net, CinemaBlend, Empire. Film and photos: The Rings of Power, seasons one and two, and the season three teaser (Amazon Prime Video); The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001), official clips; Inside The Rings of Power (Prime Video); San Diego Comic-Con 2026 panel; Tolkien in Oxford (BBC, 1968); Codex Regius (Wikimedia Commons, public domain). Tell me in the comments which part works for you, the menu or the wizard Tolkien left behind. And if you like this kind of digging into what the show took from Tolkien and what it made up, subscribing is the easiest way to catch the next one before season three.