Theo no longer believes anyone is coming to help him. That’s the change Tyroe Muhafidin describes for his character in The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power season three: five years of pain have worn down the hopeful boy, leaving him focused on staying alive. Sauron sees an opening.
During Nerdist’s season-three set visit, Muhafidin, Charlie Vickers, Ismael Cruz Córdova, and showrunners JD Payne and Patrick McKay discussed Theo’s path. Nerdist describes a striking physical transformation: long hair, hollow cheeks, scars, cuts, and dirt across his face and arms, with hardened eyes replacing his earlier tenderness.
The emotional change goes deeper than his appearance. While Sauron’s spreading darkness threatens Middle-earth, other characters still have family, friends, partners, or leaders to turn to. Theo has no king, no mother, and increasingly little faith in anyone.
“In the last two seasons, Theo was a very hopeful boy.” Muhafidin explains, “I think he was always stacked up against it, but he always remained hopeful and had faith that a better day would come. But I think we find him at the beginning of the season kind of void of that hope and angered by the pain the world has dealt out to him.”
His situation gives a particularly painful answer to the question Payne and McKay identify as season three’s theme: “When everything is falling apart, what matters most to you?”
For Theo, Muhafidin says, the answer has narrowed to survival. “I think it’s survival that’s most important to him, and I think that’s the point that his life has gotten to. It’s staying alive. And he’s at a point now where he has nothing to lose, and anything is better than the life he’s living. And I think that’s Theo’s take on what matters most to him currently.”
Five years of betrayal and loss follow a season in which Theo was still reaching for connection. After Bronwyn’s death, he bonded with Isildur over their shared losses and made room in his heart for Arondir despite their complicated relationship. Now Isildur has returned across the ocean to Númenor, and Theo and Arondir haven’t crossed paths in five years.
Meanwhile, the Númenóreans who once offered the Southlanders aid have become their oppressors. Payne and McKay describe that reversal as part of the story’s connection to Tolkien’s Legendarium.
“Theo’s arc this season is that, as we left him off last season, he was in a colony that had once been helped and lifted up by Númenórean people, but has now become subjugated by Númenórean soldiers as part of the arc in the Legendarium. We’ve watched him go from being basically a child who has suffered first the loss of his homeland, then the loss of his mother, to here. And now seeing Númenor go from benefactors to Imperial Númenor, which is exacting tribute and timber and labor from the Southlanders… It hurts.”
For someone who believed in the Great Men of Westernesse, that isn’t simply a change in who gives the orders. The people he trusted to rescue him are now causing more suffering.
“It’s just pure betrayal. I think he just feels betrayed,” Muhafidin says. “I think in the first season, Númenor did come and save the day. And so they were introduced to him in the first place as a savior, and the Southlanders were given promises by them. And Theo really believed that the Númenóreans were coming to help. And I think the moment when Kemen arrived and said what the deal is, I think that’s when all Theo’s dreams kind of shattered probably, and all hope started to die.”
Muhafidin also explains what those intervening years have involved: “Theo has been enslaved by Númenor. He and all the other Southlanders who sought refuge in Pelargir have now been instructed to chop trees all day, every day, with painful consequences if they don’t. So that’s been their life for the last five years.” The actor is describing Theo’s circumstances entering the season, not five future years viewers have already seen unfold.
A Prime Video image accompanying Nerdist’s report depicts the Númenórean takeover of Pelargir. But the labor and punishment compound an older wound: the loss of Bronwyn, the person who taught Theo to keep looking for light.
“I think the biggest thing about Theo losing Bronwyn is that he lost his last role model, or at least a loving role model,” Muhafidin says. “I think the biggest thing about Bronwyn was that she always taught Theo to look for the light, to look for the hope, to believe that a better day was coming. And she also just showed him real genuine love, and it was kind of his only source of love his entire life. And I think the moment that was stripped from him was the moment everything began to fall into pain from then on.”
Her absence still shapes his choices; the story hasn’t left that grief behind. Muhafidin adds, “So I think losing Bronwyn is still affecting him now because he doesn’t have anyone, and now he’s kind of settled in the fact that he doesn’t have anyone. And I think he probably believes that no one’s going to come. And that may make him turn to people that he probably shouldn’t.”
Sauron remembers the boy who welcomed his false king. Nerdist’s three exclusive season-three images, credited to Prime Video, place Theo alongside that familiar threat. The first image, second image, and third image accompany a discussion of how the Dark Lord might exploit someone who has lost almost every other source of hope.
Payne and McKay explicitly connect Theo’s accumulated suffering to that danger. “Theo’s now in a place where he’s really susceptible to someone like Sauron. We’re going to find out some tantalizing things that connect back to season one, to something about who Theo might be and how that leads into why Sauron sees something in him and what he wants to bring out.” They don’t identify those revelations or settle what Theo will become.
The two characters already share a history. When Sauron was posing as Halbrand, King of the Southlands, Theo was the first to devotedly chant “Strength to the Southlands!” in his honor. That happened after Mount Doom’s eruption in season one, as Galadriel led the wounded supposed king away for healing.
According to Muhafidin, Theo now knows the truth about that deception. “I think Theo and all the other Southlanders are aware of the deception that Sauron played as Halbrand and all that. I think they’ve all found out that they were given a fake King. But I think this also adds to the sense of betrayal Theo feels and the pain the world has brought him. The Númenóreans betrayed him, but so did Sauron, and that was a big pain. And so the Southland is definitely angry and hurt by the Dark Lord, but everyone is hurting because of the Dark Lord. And when they don’t have anyone to turn to, most of the time there’s only one person that is there.”
Knowing Sauron lied doesn’t necessarily make Theo safe from him. Vickers says Sauron remembers their earlier encounter and describes briefly changing his accent to evoke it.
“You see pretty early on that Sauron recognizes him, and there’s a moment where I talk to Theo, and I played with this idea, but I speak to him for a brief moment in a Northern accent as a moment of recognition. It’s a little flashback to Halbrand almost to say to Theo, ‘I remember you.’ Something to jog his mind to be like, ‘Oh yeah, we have this shared history.’ And basically Sauron sees enormous potential in him.”
That interest has a darker, more specific edge. Vickers teases, “There is a moment when Sauron identifies something in Theo, a certain darkness. And he thinks, ‘Oh, there is more to this young man than I thought there was.’”
As Payne and McKay put it, “Sauron always knows how to talk to you in just the right way to find where you might be vulnerable. So we’re going to have to watch and see how Theo responds to that.” The threat isn’t simply that Sauron can frighten Theo into obedience. He can offer something Theo desperately wants.
Vickers describes that approach as one of Sauron’s most frightening qualities: he “offers hope, and it’s kind of through the hope that that’s how he gets people. It’s like a hope for a better future, in the case of someone like Theo, a hope for a better life.”
The actors’ off-camera relationship is much warmer, with Nerdist reporting that Vickers and Muhafidin enthusiastically praised their shared scenes. On screen, though, Muhafidin describes a meeting defined by desperation: “I think Theo’s in a place of desperation. It’s a point where he has nothing to look forward to, and he has not a single glimpse of light left in his life or to look towards. They cross paths, and I think Sauron can see how desperate and how vulnerable Theo is and sees a lot that there that he can potentially play with or manipulate.”
Arondir’s absence is part of that desperation. While the elf has been fighting wars elsewhere, Theo has endured captivity without the protector he expected to return.
“Arondir’s been away fighting battles and fighting wars while Theo’s been enslaved,” Muhafidin says. “And I think the entire time Theo was hoping that Arondir would come back as he always did, but this season he doesn’t come back, and I think Theo stops waiting for him.” This particular quote doesn’t specify how long Theo has been enslaved, though Muhafidin’s earlier account puts it at five years. Here, the emphasis is emotional: repeated losses have worn down his faith in someone who once made him feel protected.
Showrunners JD Payne and Patrick McKay describe a young man whose soul has hung in the balance from the beginning. Theo has never had wealth or power to fall back on. He isn’t an elf or a Númenórean; he’s fatherless, and he has lost both his home and his mother. The only family he has left, they observe, is an elf who once made life difficult for him and his people. Those circumstances make him particularly vulnerable to Sauron.
That vulnerability doesn’t erase Theo’s courage. Payne and McKay point out that he stood toe-to-toe with Galadriel, survived the firestorm and, after his people settled in Pelargir, potentially had a future as a leader. His story isn’t simply about someone being drawn toward darkness. It’s about what happens when a person with those strengths keeps losing the things that might help him use them.
Muhafidin’s scenes with Charlie Vickers make that danger tangible. He calls Vickers one of his biggest inspirations and describes him as humble, kind and generous between takes. Once the camera rolls, though, that warmth gives way to someone terrifying. Muhafidin says he can see the change in Vickers’ eyes, making fear easy to play. When filming stops, he immediately feels comfortable again.
“Charlie is just an absolute dream. One of my biggest inspirations,” Muhafidin says. “And now, as an actor working with him, to be able to see someone as humble and kind and generous as him automatically switch as soon as the camera is rolling to the most evil person you’ve ever seen is incredible.”
Vickers is equally enthusiastic about their scenes together. His first instinct is to call Muhafidin a kid, because that’s who he was when work on the show began seven years ago. Now, Vickers says, Muhafidin is a man, and watching him grow into adulthood alongside Theo has been remarkable. Working closely with him after all that shared history was an absolute joy; their scenes together are among Vickers’ favorites of the season.
Arondir’s absence doesn’t mean he’s forgotten Theo. To Theo, it feels like abandonment. For Arondir, it reflects competing responsibilities he hasn’t found a way to reconcile. Payne and McKay explain that his original duty was to watch the Men of the Southlands. After Bronwyn’s death, that responsibility became more personal, with Arondir taking on something close to a father’s role for Theo.
Then the war pulled him elsewhere. Fighting alongside Galadriel to protect Rivendell and the elves, Arondir has reasoned that stopping Sauron must come first: if they fail, Theo’s future will be terrible anyway. He can go to the boy afterward. At the beginning of season three, though, the showrunners say he’s increasingly aware that he may have neglected his other responsibilities. He still feels like a father to Theo, even when he isn’t there.
Ismael Cruz Córdova describes Arondir as growing further into his role as an elven elder this season, while keeping a kind heart that feels almost human. Theo helps keep that connection to humanity alive. Arondir wants to know where he is and how he’s doing, and his concern comes with an awareness of how badly circumstances may have broken him.
Cruz Córdova’s reasoning is straightforward: if Arondir can be broken despite being hundreds of years old, perhaps older, what would those experiences do to a child? He recalls a line from season one, which he thinks comes in episode five, when Arondir tells Theo, “The curse that you have found in these few years of your life, it took me centuries to find.” For the actor, that exchange captures Arondir’s recognition that Theo has experienced too much, too quickly.
That recognition also leaves him with a lasting sense of responsibility. Cruz Córdova believes Arondir will always feel he failed to protect Theo as fully as he promised. The thought stays with him; it doesn’t disappear whenever another battle demands his attention.
Their shared grief over Bronwyn complicates the bond. Season two showed that Arondir and Theo could recognize each other’s pain in ways that helped rather than hurt. But Arondir’s relationship with memory means the loss won’t soften as it might for a human. Cruz Córdova says he will grieve Bronwyn “forever and ever, because you go back to elven memories not dimming.”
In his interpretation, an elf can revisit the past as a reality. The joy of loving Bronwyn, the love of gaining a son and the grief of losing her remain equally present because those memories retain their intensity. Cruz Córdova sees Arondir as someone who expected to mate for life and believes he found his true love. Theo is part of that relationship’s continuing legacy, but Arondir must also work out what place Theo has in his life.
“That’s something I don’t know if Arondir ever thought he would have, a son out of that relationship that life gave him,” Cruz Córdova says.
Theo’s feelings about that connection are less straightforward. Muhafidin believes he has never fully given himself permission to love Arondir. He grew up oppressed, with elves as his oppressors. Arondir’s repeated efforts to protect him don’t automatically overcome that history.
Worse, Theo sees those supposed protectors as having failed in their duty. Arondir was meant to keep him safe, and Theo blames him for his mother’s death. Muhafidin leaves open whether that blame is fair. For Theo, the resentment exists alongside a love he can’t entirely deny.
Arondir is also the only other person whose connection to Bronwyn was as strong as Theo’s, in Muhafidin’s view. They share a loss that neither needs to explain to the other. That gives them a way to understand each other even when anger makes closeness difficult.
Could Arondir still help Theo find the light and hope Bronwyn once offered? Cruz Córdova thinks so, but not because the elf is morally untouchable. He sees Arondir as someone who has acknowledged, in both words and actions, that he isn’t high and mighty. His familiarity with humans means accepting their persistent flaws and recognizing that he has flaws of his own.
The actor describes Arondir as carrying both light and darkness, with a sense that he could turn at any point. Around Theo, though, he softens considerably. There is love and respect there, rooted partly in a promise and partly in Theo being all that remains of the love of his life.
That isn’t the whole explanation. Cruz Córdova says Arondir admires Theo in his own right, given everything he has survived. His love is unconditional, not merely an obligation to Bronwyn’s memory. Whether that love can reach someone who has stopped waiting for him is the harder question.
A reunion, his father’s identity and a choice still ahead also figure into Theo’s story. Arondir isn’t the only connection from his past that matters this season. Asked whether viewers will learn more about Theo’s mysterious father, Muhafidin offers a brief tease: “You could say that.” He doesn’t identify the father or explain what the new information might be.
He also hints at another encounter beyond Sauron, describing “a reuniting of some sort later on in the season” that he finds beautiful, with heartfelt scenes to come. Payne and McKay offer a little more direction: they wanted to revisit the early friendship and mentorship between Theo and Galadriel, but under very different circumstances.
For McKay, the reason to revisit that pairing goes back to their season-one scene beneath a tree after Mount Doom’s explosion. He calls Tyroe Muhafidin and Morfydd Clark’s performances touching and lovely, and counts the sequence among the showrunners’ favorite material from that season. Their interest in bringing the characters together again comes from that existing connection, rather than a newly invented bond.
The showrunners aren’t revealing how the reunion plays out. Their description leaves room for the relationship to have changed along with Theo, whose experiences have taken him far from the boy Galadriel once comforted.
For Muhafidin, season three is a defining point in that development: Theo discovers for himself who he is destined to become. Sauron has reasons to target him, but being vulnerable to Sauron isn’t the same as being lost to him. Theo’s courage, his resentment and the relationships he hasn’t fully let go of all remain part of the struggle.
The Rings of Power season three, including the next chapter of Theo’s story, releases on November 11.
