After two seasons of wondering what The Stranger’s name was, we finally know that he is, in fact, Gandalf, the iconic Lord of the Rings character we all know and love. Now, as The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power gets prepared for Season 3, Daniel Weyman is opening up about what’s in store for Gandalf, and I have to say the “plethora of possible pitfalls” that lie ahead are very exciting to me.
Season 3 of Rings of Power will mark the first season Gandalf is fully in play. For the first two seasons, the wizard was discovering his power and then figuring out his name – and really, he could have been a different wizard. So, in a way, this upcoming installment will serve as a major turning point, as he starts to run down the road toward becoming the wizard we know and love. According to Weyman, that path will be full of “errors and failings,” as he told Deadline:
I’m excited for this plethora of possible pitfalls, errors and failings that young Gandalf can learn from. Literally anything could happen because the only way we’re going to see a wise being later on is if he does some pretty horrendous accidental things and puts his foot in the wrong places and has to pick it up and learn again. So I’m hoping for lots of that kind of action just so that we can see him develop and learn how he gets to be the wizard that we all love.
Let’s remember, this version of Gandalf we’re seeing is thousands of years younger than Ian McKellan’s wizard in The Lord of the Rings movies. So, it makes perfect sense that he won’t act like the wise magical being we know and love. Instead, we’ll get to see him on a journey toward becoming that wise and loving fellow, and I love the fact that his quest will be filled with flaws.
There are quite a few reasons why this ups my excitement significantly going into Season 3.
Firstly, I am so here for us seeing Gandalf flounder and figure out his power as he wanders through Middle-earth. He became the knowledgeable, powerful and caring wizard Frodo adores somehow, and it seems natural that his path to that point wouldn’t be perfect. How would he learn anything?
That leads into the second exciting element, which is simply us generally getting to see Gandalf really evolve over the course of this show. We’ve already seen a bit of that after he crashed into Middle-earth and slowly figured out his power and name. Now, we can get even more nuanced. He knows who he is. Next, he needs to figure out his place in this world, and that's no easy task.
Obviously, the best stories are also filled with complex conflict, and seeing this wizard face “pitfalls” of his own making and others’ could make for a brilliant and transformative story. It also hopefully opens a door for Gandalf to interact with more characters in Rings of Power, which I've been dying to see.
Lastly, Gandalf is magical, so him doing some “pretty horrendous accidental things” could lend itself to some epic action moments in the show. And I really want to see him experiment and use his power in the upcoming season as both a means of character growth and action opportunity.
So, all around, this is a fantastic statement from Weyman that has upped my excitement for Season 3 tenfold (and I was already really excited).
We know that Daniel Weyman’s performance has impacted his ROP character, and the fact that he was eventually named Gandalf. So, I'd assume his wishes in this statement could easily become reality. Here’s hoping this happens, and we get to see this wizard stumble a little bit on his way toward becoming one of the best magical beings in the world of The Lord of the Rings.
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