By taking one of Sauron’s nine Rings for Men, Theo starts down the road to becoming a Ringwraith. Nerdist’s exclusive conversation with Tyroe Muhafidin and The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power showrunners JD Payne and Patrick McKay explores that season-three turn. They identify his arc as the origin story of a Nazgûl, while leaving unanswered exactly who he will become and whether he might yet fight that destiny.
Nerdist reports that Theo accepts the Ring and carries out a devastating command from Sauron. What remains uncertain is where those decisions lead, especially whether his future is as the Witch-king of Angmar.
“With Theo, what you realize this season is that what you’ve been watching over three seasons of Rings of Power is the origin of a Nazgûl,” Payne and McKay tell Nerdist. Viewed through that explanation, Theo’s previous wavering between good and evil becomes preparation for tragedy, not the early stages of a conventional heroic story.
Taking the Ring, however, doesn’t immediately erase Theo as a character: a rich internal struggle is still percolating inside him. The showrunners give the transitional state Theo reaches a particular name: Nazgnagôl.
“I think what we’re always trying to do is find complexity of villainy and complexity of heroism,” Payne and McKay explain. As another instance of that thinking, they cite Adar’s place between elf and orc.
“The people who are wearing the Rings, the men wearing the Rings of Power for men this season, they’re not Nazgûl yet. We’re actually calling them ‘Nazgnagôl,’ which, according to our language experts, means not Ringwraith but Ring-servant. Tolkien was obsessed with the way that language evolved over time. And so we thought that with the Nazgnagôl, you could see how they evolve into Nazgûl. So the Ring-servants evolve into Ringwraiths. And we get to see one of these Nazgnagôl in Theo, before he becomes one of the things we know from the Third Age. The Nazgnagôl are still in the process of transformation.”
The production and its language specialists are the source of that distinction. Within it, Theo can still wrestle with himself on the way to becoming one of the feared beings viewers know from the Third Age.
To understand why Theo would welcome Sauron’s offer, the showrunners looked beyond the dark cloak and intimidating horse. Their starting point was his susceptibility: what suffering might persuade a person that taking Sauron’s power was the right thing to do?
“We thought about what somebody would have to suffer, or what they would have to lose, that might make them susceptible to this choice and make that seem like the right path to them. So Theo is a villain who hopefully has some real dimension to him now that you’ve been on a journey with him to that choice. It’s on brand for what we try to do, which is that it’s not just black and white; it’s about what makes someone decide to choose that path.”
In Nerdist’s reading, the result brings psychological complexity to an established Middle-earth menace, as the show has already done with its portrayal of orcs. A Ringwraith needn’t be experienced mainly through a moving cloak, a feeling of danger and a horse’s labored breathing. Here, the audience gets to follow the individual who could turn into one.
Muhafidin locates that susceptibility in Theo’s encounters with those ostensibly on the side of good. He knows the Númenóreans are strong, yet to him they mean betrayal, suffering and pain. During his childhood, the elves exercised authority over him, making him feel oppressed and inferior. Sauron supplies a rationale that lets Theo treat those wrongs as a license to wield power over others.
“I think Theo does believe that there’s no good and evil, only power. And that’s because I think he sees the power of the Númenóreans, and he knows that to the world the Númenóreans are supposed to be a good force, and they’re known for being strong. But all he knows now of the Númenóreans is betrayal, pain, and suffering. So he knows that they aren’t good either. But they’re powerful. And he wants to retaliate, and the only way he can see to beat them is to be more powerful. And I think Sauron really convinces him that no one is good. The elves, they are the good guys, but when Theo was growing up, his whole childhood, he was oppressed by the elves and was looked down upon, and he felt their power over him, and he had nothing. And so I think his lines of good and evil have become blurred because the good guys have been evil towards him.”
That explains Theo’s thinking, but it doesn’t make Sauron right. Having spent his life under other people’s control, Theo buys into a world where strength rules and weakness suffers. With the Ring, he moves to the other side of that order without ever leaving it.
Arondir pays with his life, Nerdist reports. Acting at Sauron’s command, Theo kills the elf with a sword, stabbing someone who had come close to being a father figure. Nerdist characterizes Arondir as the final potential tie between Theo and goodness. His death is therefore both an intimate betrayal and a deeper commitment to serving Sauron.
Nerdist calls Arondir’s death scene beautiful and epic, and says the exclusive behind-the-scenes images show how physically real the action was. Still, it would trade all that spectacle for one more episode with Arondir.
In Muhafidin’s account, Theo doesn’t simply leave his old self behind. His reaction is more disturbing, and divided against itself.
“I think in general, the feeling of taking a life for Theo is, I want to say it’s an addictive thing for him. I think that was his first moment of feeling a real sense of power over someone. There’s that moment where he cuts an orc’s tongue out, and he enjoys it. He loves that sensation of control. And I think the first taste of killing sets off a domino effect in him. I think when he stabs Arondir, he gets that initial rush of adrenaline, and he loves it. But I think that, while it’s so great in the first moment, it’s almost an instant regret and guilt that he feels. And I think that’s the biggest toss-up with him this season is figuring out that guilt and whether he’ll accept it and live with it, or use it to try to fight this direction.”
The Ring-servant’s struggle thus turns on what he does with his guilt. He might adjust to carrying it, or draw on it to push back. Either way, resistance to a Ring of Power is difficult, particularly for someone who took it because he already found Sauron’s reasoning persuasive.
Whether season three is setting Theo up to become the Witch-king remains unsettled. The words Sauron reportedly addresses to Theo encourage the theory: he says Theo was born to be “a conqueror, a sorcerer… A King.” Each description suits the Witch-king of Angmar as well. He leads the Nazgûl, but Tolkien never disclosed who he originally was.
Asked whether Theo will become the Nazgûl’s leader, Muhafidin confirms he’s discussed the possibility with the showrunners but doesn’t know their plans: “It’s been discussed. I talk about it with the showrunners a lot, but they’ve got their plans that I don’t know, and I try to poke and figure it out, but they know what’s up.”
There’s a bigger storytelling choice at work: named characters have to be allowed to fall. Tolkien’s world has hope, love and joy, but no guaranteed happy ending. Nerdist’s argument is that Theo’s turn to evil is necessary for the series’ authenticity: a realistic story needs some named characters to succumb to strong temptations. If the show has done its job, those outcomes should cause viewers pain, sadness and a sense of loss.
Payne and McKay state their purpose directly: “The reality is in Middle-earth, when evil is powerful, some people fall to it, some people pick the wrong side, and it’s not a happy ending, but it’s an ending that we felt was warranted. The story is a tragedy in this world. Sauron is becoming more and more powerful, and that means some people will join him, and that shouldn’t feel great.” That increase in power also figures in Nerdist’s wider evaluation in its review of season three.
Muhafidin spent eight months immersed in the part. What he wants audiences to take from his performance likewise concerns the human toll.
“I hope people enjoy the performance. I poured every last drop I had into this, and I lived this role for eight months, and I really gave it everything. I think what I want people to take away is that not every story is going to be a happy ending, and there really are some people who are living in tragedy, and that is just their life, and it’s really unfortunate. So where you can, be grateful for the role models you have around you that give you good guidance.”
Theo takes the Ring to gain power over others, yet his killing of Arondir comes at Sauron’s command. The showrunners’ term “Ring-servant” puts a precise name to that contradiction: he gains the control he craves by serving someone else. His next steps in season three and beyond remain unresolved: he may become a full-fledged Nazgûl, become the Witch-king of Angmar, or somehow return to the light.
