Facing a Warg while imprisoned in The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power season 2, episode 1, must have triggered bitter memories for the Dark Lord Sauron. The creation of high fantasy genius J.R.R. Tolkien and literature’s greatest villain, Sauron was actually holding all the cards in this episode, although it didn’t look like it. Amazon Prime Video’s TV series covers Sauron’s Second Age rise to power, and season 2’s first episode covered an original arc whereby Sauron handed himself in as Adar’s prisoner to manipulate Adar into invading Eregion. This fit into a wider canonical storyline.

Although it played fast and loose with the details, The Rings of Power season 2 covered the start of The War of Sauron and the Elves, touched on by Tolkien in The Lord of the Rings. While the LotR appendices outlined this war and its initial Eregion siege, portrayed in season 2’s last two episodes, The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales went into greater detail. With full rights to Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, the show has also been acquiring one-off rights to other texts as needed. Sauron’s Warg encounter referenced the illuminating Tolkien tale of Sauron’s First Age defeat.

Sauron Was Beaten By A Wolfhound & His Owner During The First Age

A Girl And Her Dog Beat Sauron On His Own Island

Sauron shared Adar’s dungeon with a prisoner of the canine variety, recalling The Silmarillion’s tale of Beren and Lúthien. Lúthien’s wolfhound, Huan, beat Sauron in a fight, forcing him to surrender his fortress and flee. This history ensured that the Sauron of Rings of Power could well have been grumbling internally at the prospect of submission in the face of another Wolf-like being. Beren Erchamion was of the noble House of Bëor but was still punching above his weight with his half-Elf, half-Maia princess love, Lúthien Tinúviel, only daughter of Queen Melian the Maia and King Thingol of Doriath.

A Rings of Power season 1 Easter egg briefly showed what appeared to be Huan and either Lúthien or Celegorm in a memorial carved into a tree in Lindon. Huan was originally gifted to the Noldor Elf Celegorm by the Vala Oromë, but Lúthien’s gentle nature stole his heart and loyalty.

With Aragorn retelling Beren and Lúthien’s story in The Lord of the Rings, the tale may be the Elves’ most resonant legend, both in-universe and in the real world. Lúthien may be the most inspiring woman in the legendarium, rebelling against her family to follow her heart and take on Morgoth and Sauron directly. Although worthy opponents, Lúthien and Huan constituted an embarrassing defeat for Sauron. At Lúthien’s mercy, with Huan’s teeth around his neck, Sauron chose surrender over death to avoid feeling Morgoth’s wrath on his naked and disembodied soul, Morgoth being his master.

How Middle-Earth’s Wargs & Wolves Are Connected

Wargs Are A Demonic Type Of Wolf

Wargs were fantasy canines in The Lord of the Rings, corrupted and demonic versions of wolves that were enemies of the Fellowship of the Ring. In the first part of The Lord of the Rings novel, The Fellowship of the Ring, Gandalf stated that Wargs served Sauron, confirming that they were under his control by the Third Age. Their cameo in Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit honored their book significance as major trouble for Thorin and Company. Orcs rode Wargs in The Lord of the Rings movies, proving their speed and ferocity, which was well-documented in the books.

Tolkienian Age
Event Marking The Start
Years
Total Length In Solar Years

Before time
Indeterminate
Indeterminate
Indeterminate

Days before Days
The Ainur entered Eä
1 – 3,500 Valian Years
33,537

Pre-First Age Years of the Trees (Y.T.)
Yavanna created the Two Trees
Y.T. 1 – 1050
10,061

First Age (F.A.)
Elves awoke in Cuiviénen
Y.T. 1050 – Y.T. 1500, F.A. 1 – 590
4,902

Second Age (S.A.)
The War of Wrath ended
S.A. 1 – 3441
3,441

Third Age (T.A.)
The Last Alliance defeated Sauron
T.A. 1 – 3021
3,021

Wargs’ origins were unclear, but they could have been among the foul creatures bred by Morgoth in the Elder Days – before the Second Age. In The Silmarillion, wolves were allied to Morgoth in the First Age and fought for him in the Nirnaeth Arnoediad, also attacking the Elvish stronghold Gondolin for him. The Silmarillion also told of fell creatures in the shape of wolves first entering Beleriand via mountains and forests in the First Age, suggesting that the link between Morgoth and wolves may have culminated in dark, wolf-shaped creatures like Wargs.

Sauron Took The Form Of A Werewolf & Was Lord Of The Werewolves Before LOTR

Sauron Used To Be A Wolf

Sauron was humiliated by the semi-divine wolfhound in F.A. 465, according to The War of the Jewels, but the plot thickens dramatically in that Sauron was actually a wolf himself at the time. Sauron was, in every way, far more of a wolf than the wolfhound Huan. Sauron was lord of werewolves, reigning over the Isle of Werewolves, and shapeshifted into the greatest wolf ever known to fight Huan. Wolves’ historical kinship to Morgoth’s forces wasn’t fully explained. However, in The Lays of Beleriand, Tolkien explained Sauron’s link to werewolves and his island, Tol-in-Gaurhoth:

This location, formerly a fortress of the House of Finarfin called Tol Sirion, had been captured by Sauron in the aftermath of the Battle of Sudden Flame. Gaurhoth is the Sindarin for Werewolf. These creatures of wolffish shape but manlike intelligence were particularly associated with Sauron. It may be that he was involved in the dark magics that created them, which might then have led to his first being called a Necromancer. Altogether nasty.

There are cat people and dog people, but Sauron was complicated. In an early version of the tale of Beren and Lúthien given in The Book of Lost Tales, there was an evil cat called Tevildo in Sauron’s place. Tolkien changed Tevildo to the Wolf-Sauron who was throttled by Huan in The Silmarillion and “The Lay of Leithian,” a poem provided in The Lays of Beleriand that Tolkien never finished. Sauron’s age-old allyship with wolves was subtly implied in the first episode of Rings of Power season 2 by Sauron’s dominance over the Warg.

The Rings Of Power Season 2’s Warg Was Both A Blessing & Curse For Sauron

Sauron Tamed The Warg In Rings Of Power Season 2

Rings of Power’s Sauron may have been equally exasperated and relieved to see the Warg in Adar’s dungeon. Encountering a Warg while chained to the wall would have been terrifying to the kind of mortal that Sauron was disguised as. However, it was advantageous to Sauron, although a harsh callback to Huan. Sauron’s command in Black Speech to the Warg was probably supported telepathically or magically. Functioning alongside Sauron’s old lordship over wolves and good old-fashioned dog training, it ensured the Warg’s capitulation. It was no longer F.A. 456 and Sauron was the top dog in this standoff.

Sauron freed the Warg and, as per Tolkien’s lore, it served him. In one fell swoop, Sauron ensured the death of Waldreg (a key political enemy), dropped a clue on his identity to Adar, and avenged his imprisoned and starved ancient kin. No wonder he smiled to hear Waldreg’s dying screams. Sauron wanted Adar to realize who he was at some point, so he would be sure to attack him in Eregion. But like the Southlands sigil, the Warg was likely a “grim reminder” of the fragility of status in The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power.