No Harfoots, Nazgnagôl Corruption & More Details Revealed for The Rings of Power (Season 3)

The full Empire Magazine The Rings of Power issue has arrived, ringing exciting new insights and details about the upcoming season. Prime video went big for San Diego Comic-Con this past week, with a new Teaser Trailer and hosting a massive Hall H panel featuring several major reveals, including the return of Celeborn (Jamie Campbell Bower).

This article breaks down the latest reveals, images, cast interviews, and showrunner comments from the magazine as The Rings of Power Season 3 edges ever closer to its four-episode premiere on November 11.

Sauron Distributes the Rings to Men

OnOne of the most exciting details from the Empire issue is the reveal of a scene in which Sauron distributes one of the Nine Rings to a future Nazgûl, whom we will see gradually become corrupted throughout the season. The full scene description reads:

Three weeks after Empire’s first visit, we return to Barad-dûr, to find Sauron now doling out rings. These are the “Nine for mortal men doomed to die”, as Tolkien’s rhyme had it. “The rings of power are a precious gift,” he snarls to a line-up of armoured men, gesturing to the shiny bands smartly displayed in a velvet display box. “Mordor can share but one.” He throws a sword onto the floor. So this is how it will be decided: a fight to the death. Later, we watch a scene where he crowns the winner. It’s time to meet the Nazgûl. The Ringwraiths.

Nazgnagôl.

No Harfoots in Season 3

Another major update for The Rings of Power Season 3 is the confirmation that the Harfoots will not be returning. Their inclusion in the series has received a mixed reaction, with some viewers enjoying their addition, while others have found their storyline across the first two seasons to be slow and tedious. The showrunners have confirmed that the Harfoots will not appear in Season 3, although they have suggested they could return in future seasons.

In short, rather a lot to pack into eight episodes. Which means there isn’t room to tell everyone’s story this year. The Harfoots, the ancient predecessors of the Hobbits, seem conspicuous by their absence. “It was time for them to take a little bit more of a backseat,” says Payne.

New Images of Galadriel and Celeborn

We have some exciting new images of Galadriel (Morfydd Clark), Celeborn (Jamie Campbell Bower) alongside some interesting details about their first interaction and relationship in season 3. One cool details fans have noticed is the similarity between Galadriel’s season 1 armour and Celeborn’s armour showcased below. Maybe this is First Age armour?

“This idea of longing and yearning is so pervasive in Tolkien’s relationship with Edith for the time that they were apart,” says Bower. “I really feasted on that idea. Celeborn has had to find a way to survive whilst longing for something that he so dearly loved and so dearly missed as well.” (McKay also notes that the characters’ meet-cute is partly inspired by some real-life Tolkien lore, when Edith danced in a woodland glade for her husband in 1917.)

Galadriel and Celeborn

Previously seen on screen, briefly, in the Peter Jackson trilogy, where he is played by actor Marton Csokas, the absence of Celeborn has loomed large over Rings Of Power. He’s an important canon character, an ancient Elf warrior who goes on to co-found Lothlórien with Galadriel — who in the original text describes her husband, perhaps teasingly, as the “wisest of the Elves”. “She’s kind of rude to him in the books,” chuckles Clark. “She’s the queen! But Jamie looks exactly like how I would imagine Celeborn. He’s such an Elf.”

It is July 15, 2025, and we’re back on set at Shepperton, where an Elven forest in the First Age has been created on a soundstage, the space filled with trees, plants, flowers, moss, grass and shrubs, some fake, most real. This is a flashback scene, thousands of years before Sauron’s re-emergence: the first meeting of Galadriel and Celeborn. It is, we are told, “sword-flirting”, Galadriel sparring solo in a flowy dress, before Celeborn (a high-cheekboned, floppy-haired Jamie Campbell Bower) playfully meets her with his own sword. A lock of Galadriel’s hair gets chopped off in the seductive scuffle. “Keep it,” she says. In-between takes, stunt supervisor Roy Taylor describes it to Empire as “a dance fight”, citing Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon as an influence. In one shot, the actors glide along the forest floor, keeping their balance on long stunt-rugs pulled in opposing directions — a true wushu move. They have been rehearsing this fight together for months, but this is the first time they’re finally on camera together. It is, in more ways than one, a long time coming.

Galadriel and Celeborn embracing

Elrond, Elros and Rivendell

We have recieved confirmation from our previous report last year that Elrond will have a flashback scene with his twin brother Elros which will also be played by Robert Aramayo.

Other stalwarts of Middle-earth are growing and changing, too, nudging ever closer to their more familiar Third Age identities. Robert Aramayo’s Lord Elrond — first introduced as an “optimistic young Elfling politician” in Season 1, as Payne puts it — is now “a little more jaded by some of the failures of the people who should have risen to the challenge and didn’t”, war-weary and worn down by the burden of leadership — closer, perhaps, to the cynical and serious version played by Hugo Weaving in Peter Jackson’s film trilogy.

“This season is an interesting one,” says Aramayo (now newly minted with two BAFTAs, for his role in Tourette’s drama I Swear). “Elrond’s got his own little gaff now,” he says in his native Hull accent, rather than Elvish RP. “He’s got his own little place in Rivendell. I was really excited that the show was going to bring it in.” The end of Season 2 saw the Elves escape the horrors of Eregion’s fall and triumphantly found the iconic hillside Elven sanctuary, in order to keep a check on Mordor. This season will deepen the idea of Elrond, and by extension Rivendell, as important ports in a Sauron-heavy storm.

“I always thought that Elrond was kind of all-the-gear-no-idea,” continues Aramayo, affectionately. “He’s read 5,000 books, but when we first meet him [in the show], he hasn’t done much. Now he’s been through quite a lot, and he’s gonna go through a lot more. He’s becoming more of a leader. I think he’s a fascinating character. Tolkien wrote that loss is such a big part of his experience — it’s odd to say that that’s part of an Elf’s life, because obviously we associate them with never dying — but he loses so many of his loved ones.”

Elrond

Khazad-dûm, Arondir and Marnûkh

There is a realy cool image of Durin IV and Disa on the throne in Khazad-dûm, teasing that we will see the beginning of their reign which may come with some trouble thanks to the teaser trailer which showcased some of the Nazgnagôl entering their throne room. Who let them in… maybe his older brother Thrain (Eddie Marsan).

We also learn more details about the mysterious character of Marnûkh. A new non-canon character will be introduced this season: Marnûkh, who the showrunners are proudly labelling “an Orc with an arc”. The time of the Orc, it seems, has come. “We love the idea of exploring what Orcs were before they became soulless, mindless slaves to Sauron’s will,” says Payne. “So out of that was born this idea of an Orc who would risk everything to defect, go to the Elves and say: ‘We have a common enemy.’”
Galadriel finds herself forming an uneasy alliance with Marnûkh, and Clark calls him “my favourite character in this series now. He’s not a nice guy. He’s morally challenged. But he has free will.”

Such are his hidden depths that Marnûkh even coins a short rhyming-verse at one point. Yes, that’s right: Orcs write poetry now. “We wanted to make room to get to know that character,” explains McKay. “What does he talk about? What food does he like to eat? What is it like to be an Orc? We think it’s really important to find room amid all the epicness for stuff that’s really small and human (as it were). Maybe he’s making up a little rhyme! We found that to be one of the things that draws you in — but maybe he’s fooling you. Part of the tension there is: can they trust the Orc?”

Durin IV & Disa

Ar-Pharazôn The Golden and Narsil

We have learnt that Ar-Pharazôn has taken the throne and is draped in a golden attire as showcased in the newly released image. This is followed by an image of Elendil kneeling on a beach shore with what seems to be the famous sword Nasil, altere wielded by Aragorn in The Lord of the Rings. This hints at these 2 faing off this season through the 2 factions of the Faithful vs the Kingsmen.

Ar-Pharazôn and Elendil

Check out the full Empire Magazine issue.