Editor's Note: The following contains spoilers for all of Season 1 of The Rings of Power.The final episode of Season 1 of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power brought a resolution to more questions than some might have expected: after all, most of the first season served as a long and elaborately drawn-out opening act to an overarching five-season storyline, there were only so many resolutions that could be reasonably expected from the finale. It was rather surprising, then, that the storyline revealed as much as it did: audiences found out the masquerade Sauron had been hiding under for the whole season, the (likely) identity of The Stranger, and, of course, the forging of the first three Rings of Power.
That having been said, as many mysteries as were revealed in the final episode, there were at least a dozen more that were not, leaving audiences guessing and grasping at straws for what is going to come next. As these hypotheses are all that we are going to have to go on until about 2024, here are all of the major unanswered questions still left hanging at the end of Season 1.
The Ascetic, The Dweller, and The Nomad (All Walk into a Bar)
One of the major unanswered questions of Season 1 was, if anything, actually made more confusing by the finale. The white-robed cultists that were following in the footsteps of The Stranger (Daniel Weyman) were suitably eerie and mysterious, but the final clash in the forest, as flashy as it was, really just stirred the pot. The cultists are apparently from Rhûn, but that doesn’t exactly answer why they were there, who they are, and how they knew to come after The Stranger in the first place.
Furthermore, when The Stranger magically banished them from the forest, they turned into magical ghostly spirit-moths that took a form reminiscent of the spectral shapes of the Ringwraiths on Weathertop in The Fellowship of the Ring. As they have forms in this “unseen world,” they cannot be ordinary mortal creatures, but what are they? Elves live in both the seen and unseen world at once, but they are not the only ones to do so. Other great spirits of Arda live in both worlds at once, so they could potentially be any of a variety of different characters.
What’s Going to Happen with the Balrog?
The reveal of the balrog in Episode 7 was given no resolution at the end of the season, and as such leaves the audience with a host of questions going forward. Presumably this is the same balrog from the “Hithaeglir” legend, and also the same balrog that later destroys Khazad-dûm and faces off against Gandalf at the end of the Third Age, but what is it going to do in the meantime? And what will it do in Season 2?
There are a few possibilities. The writers could be moving up the fall of the dwarf kingdom to the Second Age, although that would be a major change to the timeline overall. This same balrog eventually becomes “Durin’s Bane,” although the Durin he kills is supposed to be a later king. This, too, is a possibility with a shuffled timeline. One way or another, though, it seems impossible that the balrog won’t be part of the story going forward.
What About the Elf?
Another curious question brought up by the Hithaeglir story is the status of the elf involved. The identity of the elf was never revealed, so it could just have been an unidentified character who only exists to move the story along. On the other hand, there are a couple of conspicuously missing elves of the Second Age who could perhaps return as the elf of the mithril legend. Could he be Galadriel’s (Morfydd Clark’s) missing husband, Celeborn? Or perhaps the elf Glorfindel, who returned to Middle-earth after he died in battle against a balrog in the First Age?
What’s Next Between the Dwarves and Elves?
The unmined mithril in Khazad-dûm is a presence that hangs over the final episodes of Season 1 and will certainly be a key point in the second season. The dwarf kingdom historically becomes known for its mithril, so presumably, a situation will come when the dwarves resume the mining of mithril. How, when, and why that will happen, however, is a mystery.
Another related question that will have to be addressed in the next season is what the relationship between the elves and dwarves will look like. Tolkien indicated that the relationship between the dwarves of Khazad-dûm and the elves of Eriador in the Second Age was the best friendship that there ever was between the two peoples, but audiences have yet to see much of that relationship bear fruit. There was some cooperation in building the forge of Celebrimbor (Charles Edwards), but there is much more that historically happens between the two cultures in subsequent years. How that relationship gets forged is likely to be part of the plot of the next season.
What Did Eärien See?
One of the most tantalizing and deliberately mysterious plot elements in the final episode was the discovery by Eärien (Ema Horvath) of the upper chamber and the palantir in the king’s tower. The last shot of the scene seemed deliberately chosen to suggest a whole cascade of questions: did she look into the palantir? What did she see? Was it the fall of Númenor, or something else? If it was the fall of Númenor, what is she going to do about it? Will she tell her family, or perhaps Kemen (Leon Wadham) instead?
What is the Connection between The Stranger and Sauron?
While the end of the final episode leaned pretty heavily into the “Stranger is Gandalf” idea, it stopped just short of saying it outright, which leaves just enough wiggle room for new theories to develop about his identity. It did reveal that he was one of the Istari (wizards), but the curious statement made by the three cultists suggested some as yet unrevealed connection between The Stranger and Sauron. When they realized their mistake in identifying him as Sauron, he was called “the other one.” This, of course, begs the question: the other one what? Sauron doesn’t exactly have a twin, although the istari are maiar of the same class as Sauron is. The exclusive use of “other one,” though, suggests that there is some sort of pair involved. While it is unlikely at this point that the Stranger will be one of the two Blue Wizards, he clearly has some sort of connection to Sauron, and he is heading off to Rhûn, where Tolkien suggested the Blue Wizards were working. So what is that connection?
What About the Other Rings?
While the three Elven Rings were finally created at the end of Episode 8, that left a good 17 other Rings of Power as yet unmade and undistributed. The nine Rings for men, the seven for dwarves, and the One Ring have yet to make their appearance, but they can’t be long in coming, either. How they get distributed and made is bound to be a curious question of Season 2, as is the manner in which Sauron works to corrupt them.
What’s With All the Missing Characters?
While Celeborn and Glorfindel were touched on earlier, they are only two of a growing cast of characters that are mysteriously absent from the story. While some of these characters may simply be written out of the story for the sake of simplicity, others are almost certainly going to turn up, and have already been suggested as important to the future of the story.
For one thing, where is Anarion? Isildur’s (Maxim Baldry’s) brother has been referenced multiple times in the first season but has yet to actually show up, being seemingly estranged from his family. It is unlikely that he will remain distant, however. And for that matter, the absent Isildur is also a major question mark for the next season. After being left behind in Mordor, what will he end up doing? Will he encounter Adar (Joseph Mawle) again? Or perhaps come across Sauron in his new domain? Or will he take some part in the impending clash between Sauron and Adar?
The ents, as well, have been curiously absent. While there was a brief cameo of ents and entings when the Stranger crash-landed in the first episode, they have not appeared again. That hardly seems likely to continue, however, as the loss of the entwives is one of the great unresolved mysteries of Tolkien’s histories, and ample opportunity for the series to explore in the future.
Of course, the most notable absence of all for the foreseeable future is going to be the Great Episode Absence. As we will likely be waiting for two years for the next season of the show, we will have to be satisfied with the endless nuances of hinted developments and new theories for now. But of course, if the fan theories around Season 1 were any measure, that is a great deal of the fun of the series in the first place.