‘Rings of Power’ has been showing us what gaslighting in an abusive relationship looks like

The Lord of The Rings: The Rings of Power slander never makes sense to me. The series is here giving us a never-done-before-on-screen deep dive into Sauron as Annatar deceiving Celebrimbor — and people want to complain about orcs having a family and the elves having short hair?

Sauron is in his Deceiver era, which is something that we’ve only ever read about in J.R.R. Tolkien’s books but never quite experienced on screen.

In the Peter Jackson films, Sauron does not have a corporeal form and we understand his modus operandi only through the working of the One Ring. But with The Rings of Power, we get a look inside Sauron’s mind, his deceptive tactics, his ambition to restore Middle-earth to perfection that is corrupted because he simply cannot resist an opportunity to seize power. We see the making of Sauron, the Lord of The Rings, and you cannot deny this is the most terrifying he has ever been, even if his hair is tied in a coquette bow!

We’ve already seen how the One Ring works, how the ringbearer may take the ring with the intention of doing good, and in the beginning, that’s what the ring allows them to do. However, as the ring senses power within its grasp, it corrupts the ringbearer and turns their purpose to evil. The ring, in some ways, gaslights the ringbearer into thinking this is something that’s good for them, something they must do, and that whatever the outcome, it is their fault. As we see with Gollum and Frodo, the One Ring is both their treasure and their burden; they both love and hate the ring.

The collaboration between Sauron as Annatar (Charlie Vickers) and the Lord of the Elven Smiths of Eregion, Celebrimbor (Charles Edwards), reflects this very facet of the One Ring, which is an extension of its creator. Their working relationship plays out as a classic toxic domestic abuse relationship between lovers, where the former gaslights the latter into getting what they want and thinking everything that goes wrong is their fault.

Sauron’s deception began as early as season 1, when he was Halbrand and was brought into Eregion to heal after the battle in the Southlands. In the scene where he stumbles into Celebrimbor’s workshop, he offers subtle flattery and important knowledge, just the right amount of nudge, to get Celebrimbor to start taking him seriously and subconsciously seek Halbrand’s approval of his greatness. 

In season 2, when Halbrand returns to Eregion, Celebrimbor has been asked by Galadriel (Morfydd Clark) to not engage with him. And yet, Halbrand manages to weasel his way into Celebrimbor’s workshop, even before he reveals himself as Annatar. As with most artists and creators, Celebrimbor fears being forgotten or not being able to leave a mark on the world with the skills he possess. And Sauron preys on this fear when he fakes shock and empathy over Celebrimbor not being informed by Gil-galad (Benjamin Walker) or Galadriel that the elven rings worked. We, the audience know, that Sauron has awoken the barrow-wights to take down the High King’s messenger, but to Celebrimbor, this feels like being cast aside without being given credit of literally saving all the high elves on Middle-earth from having to leave its shores.

The revelation of Halbrand as Annatar, an emissary of the Valar, is almost as if the ambitious and hungry Celebrimbor found validation of his smith skills and his life’s purpose from the Gods themselves. At first, Annatar promises Celebrimbor help and guidance that could further his greatness. It was all about hyping Celebrimbor up to achieve what he wanted, and for him to take the lead, with Annatar only a guiding hand making no mention of his own motivations.

And then, as they begin forging the dwarven rings, and Celebrimbor’s confidence grows, there are little changes in Annatar’s behaviour that are reminiscent of emotional abuse in relationships. When Celebrimbor gives his grand speech about collaborating with dwarves, Annatar tries to put him down, suggesting that their power dynamic is not as plain as it might seem. Celebrimbor may be overtly the one deciding whether they will or will not forge the rings for Men, but Annatar has the power to manipulate him, make him doubt his decisions, and even change them. It’s his carefully crafted words that make Celebrimbor lie to his High King in the letter about shutting down the forge, as once again, Annatar has preyed on his fears of being kept from achieving greatness like his ancestor, Fëanor.

But here’s something that’s even more complex: Celebrimbor does have a slight niggling feeling from the beginning that he is playing with fire here, and that Annatar is something that he doesn’t entirely understand and must be careful around. But he is blinded by his own ambition and often underestimates to what extent Annatar has control over his actions and thoughts. When Durin (Owain Arthur) tells Celebrimbor that something is wrong with the dwarven ring, and Celebrimbor suspects Annatar, the latter deftly turns the blame on Celebrimbor, blaming his deception of the High King has corrupted their forging of the rings, and therefore it is Celebrimbor’s failure. 

A common pattern in abusive relationships is the push-and-pull behaviour, where the abuser will hurt the victim by saying something harsh, breaking their confidence, thereby pushing them away. But then, because they still need them, they will once again resort to flattery and apologies, and even love bombing, to reel their victims in again. Annatar realises that he needs Celebrimbor to complete the rings for Men, and we get the scene where Mirdania becomes invisible while they are trying out a new way to forge the rings. Celebrimbor comes in and “saves her,” followed by Annatar staging his and Gwaith-i-Mírdain’s failure as an acknowledgment that they cannot do it without Celebrimbor, and he would be “saving them time” if he decided to help. This flattery, coupled with the always there fear of being remembered for defective rings, drives Celebrimbor once again into helping Annatar forge the very rings he was initially adamant about not making.

It’s also worth noting that Celebrimbor isn’t the only one that Annatar is gaslighting. We see him do the same with Mirdania too, the elven smith in the Gwaith-i-Mírdain who has from the beginning, been a bit enamoured by this statuesque being that even her own boss takes guidance and advice from. In episode 5, Mirdania is momentarily in the Unseen World, where she gets a glimpse of Sauron’s true form. But being the gaslighting expert that he is, Sauron convinces her that what she saw was Celebrimbor’s troubled spirit as the forging of the rings took a toll on his soul, and that he is trying to help him get better. He then even lays in a compliment by telling her she shares the likeness of Lady Galadriel, which would be the highest flattery for any elven lady. Whether this was Sauron’s own obsession with Galadriel momentary escaping from his carefully constructed mask, or an intentional flattery, we can’t quite say, but what a master manipulative tactic!

Annatar is also the good cop to Celebrimbor’s bad cop when the latter reprimands his smith for not giving their utter best at work. It’s a clever way of saving his skin, earning Mirdania and the other smiths’ trust, and laying the groundwork to discredit Celebrimbor if he were ever to see through Annatar’s deception or have moments of lucidity where he tries to tell someone with the truth of what is happening to him and ask for help. This, too, is something that abusers often do. They create an alibi for themselves and putting up a front in society that they are actually worried or concerned about their victim’s self-sabotaging behaviour and deteriorating mental or emotional state so that they can discredit them if they ever try to talk about their abuse. 

And finally, in episode 6, Annatar employs a rather direct form of deception to keep Celebrimbor from escaping what is clearly a toxic relationship. Earlier in the season, Gil-galad told Galadriel that he wouldn’t send her alone to face Sauron, because once he knows someone’s mind, he can craft a deception that is customised to exactly what they’d want to see. Well, that’s precisely what Annatar does with Celebrimbor, showing him an Eregion without cares, like an abuser crafting an illusion of safety for their victim so they can keep exploiting them and ensure they never leave. In episodes 5 and 6, Celebrimbor is on edge, almost jumpy, as Annatar speaks, and there’s fear there, where earlier there was cautious fascination.

As of episode 6, Sauron as Annatar has taken full control of Eregion too; you could almost say he IS the Lord of Eregion, while Celebrimbor is incapacitated by the deception into focusing only on the rings, his agency taken away without his knowledge. And due to all the clever manipulation he has done, even the people of Eregion are about to trust Annatar more than Celebrimbor, who has been rude, snappy, uninvolved and absent when it mattered. It’s telling that despite Annatar revealing his true colours—he has finally donned black—it will be a long time before his deception and abuse are out in the open. If this doesn’t make a chill run down your spine, you’re not paying attention!

With Adar’s army almost darkening their doorstep, Eregion is ripe for a fall, a sitting duck, if you will. Watching the city fall is not going to be easy; this could very well be Rings of Power’s Helm’s Deep moment when Elrond and Gil-Galad’s elven army comes to the rescue. But what will be even more heartbreaking to watch is Celebrimbor’s reaction when he finds out that Annatar is Sauron and that everything that Sauron achieved at Eregion, was through him. Charlie Vickers and Charles Edwards have done a phenomenal job in depicting this complex relationship that is charged with such chemistry (even sexual tension, NGL!) and toxicity, that I am not ready for these last two episodes of The Rings of Power knowing what they will bring!