The Lord of the Rings has always kept the true form of Sauron as quiet as possible, not giving away too much about the Dark Lord’s appearance.

That is until The Rings of Power came along, deciding to make Sauron’s creation of the rings and his rise to power a feature of the show.

This means showing various aspects of his person, including several forms he appears in.

In the first episode of season two, we get to see him as a writhing mass of tentacles and goop, searching out a host body.

Once that host body is found he can shape it however he chooses and, in this instance, he chooses to look like Halbrand.

In the books it’s slightly different as he is described as a shadow moving across and into the land, but that wouldn’t have looked as good, or as creepy, for the TV show.

A member of Reddit wanted to know more about this form of Sauron and the community came to help out.

A user called HazelCheese explained this form of Sauron pretty well.

“[Sauron’s] spirit spreads like a shadow across and into the land. They are able to eventually reform, but are always weaker than they were before because some of their spirit is spread too thin for them to recover.”

Of course, Sauron goes on to take several forms as the show plays out, but he generally looks like Halbrand, played by actor Charlie Vickers.

Redditor HazelCheese continues, “Sauron turning into a puddle that eventually reforms is a fairly consistent interpretation IMO.”

The show actually manages to conjure this image nicely, making it a bit more disturbing and gross as the block ichor sprouts tentacles to move along the ground.

It’s a good visual manifestation of evil and shows what Sauron looks like between human forms.