The Rings of Power: why season 3 will be the season of Gandalf

He will bewitch Middle Earth on Prime Video this fall, before returning to the big screen in December 2027 in the guise of Ian McKellen… But how will the old white-bearded man, who has become a pop culture icon, leave his mark on the series?

Only Joey in Friends doesn’t know who Gandalf is.

In his defense, in the mid-1990s, Peter Jackson had not yet won his Oscars or transformed the global box office into bars of mithril. But for three decades, the magician has been an essential figure in popular culture, the kind of character whose silhouette we recognize before even seeing his face: a long, disheveled beard, a pointy hat, an old gentleman’s dress and a stick that doesn’t look like much. All topped with a pair of eyebrows capable of disapproving all of humanity in a single movement. Almost a century after his first appearance in Tolkien (it was in 1937, in the first chapter of The Hobbit), Gandalf is still there. Better still, he’s back in force: this fall, in season 3 of Rings of Power, on Prime Video, the Stranger will complete his metamorphosis to become the legendary magician. Then in December 2027, Ian McKellen will reprise his costume in The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum, under the direction of Andy Serkis. Two generations of actors, two incarnations of the same myth.

In Tolkien’s writings, Gandalf was not originally a cheap wizard who dispenses cryptic advice before disappearing in a cloud of smoke. He is a being of divine origin, a Maiar, sent to Middle-earth by the Valar, the superior powers of the Tolkienian universe. His mission? Advise, guide and unite free peoples against the forces of Evil.

“In Rings of Power season 3, he begins to realize who he really is……