You don’t have to think too hard to answer the questions posed in The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power — but that isn’t necessarily a hindrance to the Amazon series. Any Tolkien fan could see shades of Gandalf in the amnesiac Stranger (Daniel Weyman), or the physical similarities between the “Dark Wizard” (Ciarán Hinds) and Saruman the White. But The Rings of Power is not as interested in outright confirmation as it is in taking audiences on a journey. A long, winding, occasionally frustrating journey… but a journey all the same.

It’s not about whether the Stranger is Gandalf, but how he becomes the wizard we know and love. It helps that the series finally confirms its longest-reigning theory at the end of Season 2 — and seems to do the same for the Dark Wizard — but The Rings of Power does all of this on its own terms. Let’s break down the finale’s big wizard bombshells, and explore how they set up an intriguing Season 3.

Spoilers ahead for The Rings of Power Season 2 Episode 8.

Introducing the Dark Wizard (aka, Saruman?)

Who is the Dark Wizard? We still don’t really know yet.

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In The Rings of Power’s Season 2 finale, the Stranger abandons his wizard training with Tom Bombadil (Rory Kinnear) to save his halfling friends from imminent danger. He turns up at the Stoor village to confront the nomads that have been hunting Nori Brandyfoot (Markella Kavenagh) and Poppy Proudfellow (Megan Richards), but he comes face-to-face with the Dark Wizard first.

“Manwë promised you would come,” he tells the Stranger, invoking the name of the King of the Valar. The Dark Wizard goes on to describe the origins of the Istar, the wizards sent “from the uttermost west” (also known as the Undying Lands) to the realm of Middle-earth. He even reveals that the Stranger was the one who convinced him to lend aid in the fight against Sauron, but he withholds the rest of his knowledge until he’s sure the Stranger will ally with him.

Though the Dark Wizard apparently resents his moniker, he never outright reveals his true name. But there are plenty of context clues confirming that he could be Saruman. For one, he seems less interested in defeating Sauron than he is in replacing him. (“Walk with me,” he tells the Stranger, “and in time, we will both become his successors.”) And for another, he has no qualms with harming the halflings to get to the Stranger.

The Rings of Power positions the wizard as a potential antagonist for future seasons. If he really is meant to be Saruman, though, the series is a bit too eager to reveal his inner darkness. Saruman is meant to become Gandalf’s mentor in the years before Lord of the Rings: how will The Rings of Power reconcile this version of the character with the figure that Gandalf trusts beyond a shadow of a doubt?

The Stranger’s true purpose

While the Dark Wizard’s identity is still a mystery, The Rings of Power finally confirms the Stranger’s real name.

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The complications of Saruman’s potential reveal are an issue for another day, as he manages to escape (by unleashing a deadly avalanche on the halflings) before he can reveal any more secrets. As for the Stranger, it turns out that friendship was the key all along. In an effort to save Nori and the Stoors, he unleashes a powerful, yet stable, wave of magic. He even finds his staff in the aftermath; fittingly, it’s Nori who sets it in his path.

After the Dark Wizard lays waste to the Stoor village, Nori makes an effort to clean up the debris as best she can. She pulls a wayward branch out of the rubble, and the Stranger later stumbles across it, adopting it as his new walking stick. It’s a fitting way for the character to reclaim a lost part of his identity, and reaffirm his connection to Nori — especially as she’s about to embark on a new adventure without him.

Per Kavenagh, filming the scene in question was an exercise in cognitive dissonance. “We knew it was coming,” the actress tells Inverse, “but I think it was really important for it not to be like, ‘I am leaving this here.’”

It’s the Stranger’s friendship with Nori that unlocks his true potential.

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Nori has no idea what she’s setting in motion when she tosses the Stranger’s staff onto the ground: “Her focus truly was on how guilty she felt for what was happening to the Stoors. So really tapping into that was so amazing to film because there was so much that was being resolved just within her.”

The Rings of Power’s last episode puts Nori and the Stranger on diverging paths: she’s setting off in search of a fabled promised land for the halflings, while the Stranger will remain in Rhûn under Tom Bombadil’s tutelage. But the series makes it clear that the halflings were the key to unlocking the Stranger’s latent potential. Their nickname for him, “Grand-elf,” even inspires his true name, Gandalf.

It took a long time to get to this moment, but Gandalf’s reveal was, admittedly, kinda satisfying. Though his identity has been replaced with the mystery of the Dark Wizard, it’s clear The Rings of Power team has a plan. It’s more about the emotional journey than it is about hitting checkpoints in canon; audiences may not love the mystery at every stage, but the series isn’t compromising the story it wants to tell.