Major spoilers follow for the first four episodes of The Rings of Power season three, including the identity of Ciarán Hinds’ character. Haven’t caught up? Nerdist’s pre-season set coverage and spoiler-free review leave the Dark Wizard’s identity a secret.
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Who Is Ciarán Hinds’ Dark Wizard in The Rings of Power?
Season three, episode three finally names Ciarán Hinds’ character: Pallando the Blue. For its Second Age account of the Dark Wizard, The Rings of Power has turned to one of the Blue Wizards who failed in J.R.R. Tolkien’s writings.
The clues in season two suggested someone else. Viewers had plenty of grounds for identifying the Dark Wizard as Saruman from his actions, just as the Stranger’s arrival offered clues pointing to Gandalf. The showrunners, however, cautioned that resemblance didn’t establish his identity.
According to J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay, Hinds’ character being Saruman, the White Wizard of The Lord of the Rings, was “nearly impossible”. The revelation that he is Pallando confirms their warning. Those similarities reflect two comparable falls into darkness rather than an earlier chapter in Saruman’s life.
Who Are the Blue Wizards of Middle-earth, Alatar and Pallando?
Tolkien’s versions of the Blue Wizards differ in several respects, but they consistently belong to the Istari, alongside Gandalf, Saruman, and Radagast. All of these wizards were Maiar, or demigods. Their task came from the creator god Eru Ilúvatar, who sent them to resist Sauron.
They owe their collective name to the sea-blue robes they wore. In Unfinished Tales, Tolkien names the pair Alatar and Pallando. It is Pallando whom Prime Video’s series identifies as the Dark Wizard.
No definitive, detailed history emerged from Tolkien’s many revisions. The show adopts his tragic view of the pair: entrusted with helping to save Middle-earth, they ultimately fail. Some versions leave more room for a mixed outcome, though. Tolkien entertained the idea that they might still have helped weaken Sauron.
What Happened to the Blue Wizards in Tolkien’s Lore?
Tolkien’s statement that the Blue Wizards “went as emissaries to distant regions, east and south” allows for a destination such as Rhûn. The series places the Dark Wizard in that eastern land, where he ruled for many generations before Sauron began handing Rings of Power to kings of men.
Describing them as “missionaries to enemy occupied lands as it were,” Tolkien thought the pair had almost certainly failed at their task. But he also acknowledged that he had no complete account of their accomplishments:
“What success they had I do not know,” Tolkien wrote, “But I fear that they failed, as Saruman did, though doubtless in different ways; and I suspect they were founders or beginners of secret cults and ‘magic’ traditions that outlasted the fall of Sauron.”
Even their arrival had no fixed date in Tolkien’s accounts. He variously assigned their journey to Middle-earth to the Second Age and the Third Age. The Rings of Power chooses a clear history for the two wizards instead of retaining those conflicting possibilities.
Pallando Kills His Fellow Blue Wizard Alatar in The Rings of Power
Gandalf discovers Alatar’s fate during season three through a conversation with Eru Ilúvatar: his fellow Blue Wizard Pallando betrayed and killed him.
The pair had been charged with defending Rhûn. Wanting more power, Pallando let greed draw him away from that duty and toward the murder of his companion. The consequences extended far beyond Alatar’s death. The evil of the act devastated all of Rhûn, destroying lands that had once been lush and green.
Pallando’s fall made him the Dark Wizard, a force of shadow. After he cursed the Gaudrim, they came to worship him as a god. The story also settles when the pair arrived in the adaptation: Alatar and Pallando both came to Middle-earth during the Second Age.
Does Pallando Turn Evil in The Lord of the Rings Lore?
The murder of Alatar by Pallando doesn’t occur in Tolkien’s writings. Both the betrayal and the ruin it brings upon Rhûn are inventions of The Rings of Power.
For Nerdist, this invented history develops the darker framework Tolkien left behind rather than adapting an incident he actually described. His outline has the Blue Wizards failing to defend Middle-earth and founding secret magical cults that survive long afterward. That failure foreshadows the day Saruman will also turn away from his mission.
It also accounts for the Dark Wizard’s resemblance to Saruman in season two. Nerdist reads Pallando’s downfall as a story drawn from Tolkien’s work and shaped to echo Saruman’s. Gandalf’s latest encounters with the Istari add a further parallel, placing him in the position of trying to save a wizard already lost to darkness.
What Is Pallando/The Dark Wizard’s Connection to Gandalf in The Rings of Power?
Season three gives Gandalf and Pallando a bond beyond their shared status as wizards: their destinies are linked. Speaking as the Secret Fire, Eru Ilúvatar assigns the Istari a direct task. He sent Gandalf, also known as Mithrandir, to Middle-earth not to defeat Pallando, but to save him.
Eru explains that restoring Pallando to the forefront by saving the Dark Wizard is Gandalf’s sole hope of preventing Rhûn’s armies from joining Sauron. Defeating an opponent alone cannot achieve that. He has to bring Pallando’s remaining goodness back into the open.
Saving Middle-earth then depends on Gandalf joining forces with Pallando. Nerdist connects that condition to the importance Tolkien places on facing darkness together. In this case, cooperation poses a particular challenge: the ally Gandalf needs is the wizard responsible for Rhûn’s devastation.
Will Gandalf Succeed in Saving the Dark Wizard and Bringing Back Pallando’s Goodness?
Gandalf’s inability to save Saruman from darkness in the Third Age makes for an uneasy precedent. It doesn’t determine whether he can rescue Pallando in the Second Age, although another failure is possible. Might that explain why the Blue Wizards’ ultimate fates are so poorly known? The series has yet to provide an answer.
With Sauron set to forge the One Ring, Nerdist sees the fight for Middle-earth’s soul becoming even more perilous, noting that the Ring will eventually corrupt Saruman. Pallando might appear headed for a comparable fate. That possibility, however likely it looks, is not a certainty.
Another version of the story offers a little more hope. Tolkien’s alternative account in The Peoples of Middle-earth suggests that the Blue Wizards may have done somewhat more to hinder Sauron. Under that interpretation, Pallando could still reclaim enough of his former self to accomplish some good.
Tolkien writes, “Their task was to circumvent Sauron: to bring help to the few tribes of Men that had rebelled from Melkor-worship, to stir up rebellion … and after his first fall to search out his hiding (in which they failed) and to cause [?dissension and disarray] among the dark East … They must have had very great influence on the history of the Second Age and Third Age in weakening and disarraying the forces of East … who would both in the Second Age and Third Age otherwise have … outnumbered the West.”
Here, an acknowledged failure sits alongside a contribution that could have been considerable. Although they failed to find Sauron’s hiding place following his first fall, their support for rebellious tribes and disruption of eastern forces could have prevented those armies from outnumbering the West in both Ages. Failure in one part of their work needn’t mean the entire mission achieved nothing.
For now, Pallando appears to believe Sauron’s rings can rescue Rhûn and repair the damage caused by his own descent into darkness. Nerdist considers that plan doomed to fail. The open question is whether Gandalf can make him see that what he regards as a remedy will only bring more destruction.
