Throughout the second season of Prime Video’s The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, the Stranger had two main goals, both of which he achieved by the end of the finale, “Shadow and Flame.” The first was to discover his name. As many suspected, he turned out to be none other than Gandalf. He is destined to one day wield the Ring of Fire, help Thorin’s Company of Dwarves reclaim Erebor, lead the Fellowship in the quest to destroy the One Ring, and fall at the hands of the Balrog in the Mines of Moria but return to Middle-earth as Gandalf the White.

The Stranger’s second goal was to find his staff, which appeared to him in a dream under a particular constellation. In J. R. R. Tolkien’s writings, Gandalf’s name and his staff were connected; gand is an Old Norse word for “wand” or “staff,” and alf means “elf” in the same language, so Gandalf’s name could be translated as “Staff Elf.” The Rings of Power gave Gandalf’s staff a backstory that was not present in the novel version of The Lord of the Rings or any of Tolkien’s other writings, explaining the origin of one of the Grey Wizard’s most iconic accessories.

The Stranger Had Trouble Finding His Staff

While searching for his staff in Rhûn, the Stranger experienced many false starts. First, he took a curved stick from the well that Nori and Poppy found in the desert, but when he tried to use it to fend off the masked nomads, it dissolved and caused him to lose control of his sandstorm spell. Later, at Tom Bombadil’s house, he noticed a branch on an ironwood tree that he thought could serve as a staff. Unbeknownst to him, this was a sentient tree called Old Man Irownood, who attacked him when he tried to break off a branch. Tom rescued the Stranger, and after some discussion about the nature of magic, Tom brought him to a field of non-sentient trees from which he could select a staff. He said that the Dark Wizard had once done the same.

However, the Stranger received a vision that Nori was in trouble, so he went to save her instead of finding his staff. This led to his confrontation with the Dark Wizard and the destruction of the Stoors’ home. Gandalf’s staff in The Rings of Power actually had a simple, humble origin; it was a random piece of debris that Nori discarded while helping the Stoors prepare for their migration. It looked similar to Gandalf’s first staff from Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit films, which he later replaced with a staff that Radagast gifted to him. This was all part of Tom’s plan; towards the end of the episode, he told the Stranger, “A Wizard does not find his staff. It finds him.”

The Wizards’ Staves Were Mysterious in The Lord of the Rings

Tolkien’s writings did not give Gandalf’s staff a backstory. There was very little lore about the Wizards’ staves in general. Unlike in some fantasy settings, they were not the source of the Wizards’ power — Gandalf was able to slay the Balrog without one, and Saruman was able to coerce the Ents into freeing him from captivity without one — yet the characters of The Lord of the Rings thought that staves were important.

Gríma Wormtongue ordered the Rohirrim to take Gandalf’s staff before permitting him entry to Meduseld, and Gandalf broke Saruman’s staff after his defeat at Isengard. Perhaps staves simply amplified the Wizards’ spells or helped them focus their magic, hence the Stranger losing control when his makeshift staff broke. Since Tolkien left this a blank space in his lore, it provided the perfect opportunity for The Rings of Power‘s writers to add to Middle-earth’s worldbuilding. Future seasons may explain in greater detail what Gandalf’s staff allows him to do.